Rivalries, upsets rule in Week 2 of the South MS high school football season
The second piece of the Mississippi Coast football season puzzle is in place.
Old rivalries provided glimpses of potential, and a certain offensive unit is scorching fields through two weeks. The biggest stories of this week involve the continued dominance of St. Stanislaus against its arch nemesis as it looks to maintain another streak.
Biloxi met Pascagoula for the 101st time, and it may have been the ugliest scrap of them all. And down in The Pass, a former defensive back is leading one of the Coast’s most prolific offenses.
Here are top storylines from the second week of action.
For all the crabs
Despite giving up some size in the trenches, St. Stanislaus pulled out its fourth consecutive win in the Crab Trap Trophy series over Bay High, 20-14.
The Rock-a-Chaws shut out the Tigers in the second half and used rushing touchdowns of 18 and 2 yards by Max Rhodes to pull ahead. Rhodes would finish with 59 yards on the ground while Jayvien Thompson ran for 72 yards and SSC’s first score of the ball game.
Bay High running back Que Victor was a handful in the opening half, scoring the game’s first touchdown on the ground and responding to the Rocks’ first score with a 90-yard kick return touchdown.
St. Stanislaus was disruptive enough on defense to effectively stunt The Bay’s offense. It got sacks from Fisher Smith, Brick Compretta and Jackson Savoy. Garren Couey recovered a fumble and Lex Rhodes snagged an interception.
St. Stanislaus has won 12 of the last 13 games in the series and holds a 37-20 all-time advantage. The result is a positive sign for a program that hopes to make this season the 13th straight to continue into the playoffs.
Paris leading the Pirates
The Pass Christian offense has been an unstoppable force through the opening weeks of the season. It followed a 49-14 shelling of Long Beach with a 47-14 rout at Purvis.
Quarterback Paris Trivillion just started playing the position a year ago, but is the Coast’s leading returning passer and is looking like the frontrunner for passing champ this year.
The junior has thrown for 544 yards through two games and had four touchdown tosses in each of those games. Trivillion efficiently completed 18 of 23 pass attempts for 294 yards against Purvis.
A number of skill players are involved in the Pirate attack, but an early and explosive favorite has emerged for Trivillion. Dwight Thomas has hauled in 12 catches for 257 yards and a staggering six touchdowns.
If you counted Thomas as his own team, he’d be the 17th highest scoring one on the Coast. That’s more points than eight other teams.
The Pirates are on a chase for history this fall. The region is open for the taking with the departure of Poplarville and Greene County replacing both coach and quarterback. Pass Christian has no district banner in its stadium, but just may have the offense to obtain one.
The good and the ugly
Biloxi and Pascagoula both played bad enough to virtually guarantee themselves a loss. But they played each other, so somebody had to win.
That was Biloxi, who earned its first signature win under second-year head coach Jamey DuBose in a three-hour competition of false starts, interceptions, fumbles, personal fouls and just about anything else you can imagine that could go wrong on the field.
But DuBose will take it. The Indians put together the game’s best-looking possessions in the first half, pushing the Panther line off the ball and creating running lanes for Jo Jo Thomas on the perimeter and Dylan Dixson at the goal line.
It made life hard for Pascagoula quarterback Jason Glaude with constant pressure from a defense that’s fielding very little experience. The positives Biloxi can pull bode well, but there will be virtually zero space for error when region play arrives.
And for the Panthers, it was a disappointing and frustratingly familiar product. Pascagoula’s loss at Picayune last year was largely its own undoing. Lewis Sims said before the season that the offseason focus was on execution and being precise.
His team had close to 20 penalties during the night along with three turnovers and a failed fake field goal. Few teams in the state can boast the talent the Panthers bring each week, but there’s plenty to clean up before attempting yet again to storm the Maroon Tide fortress.
