Admiral reign returns: Gulfport survives Warriors’ rally to capture region title
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Gulfport beat D’Iberville 38-35 on the road and clinched the Region 4-7A title.
- Cooper Crosby topped 1,000 rushing yards and scored four touchdowns to power Gulfport.
- Coach Blake Pennock captured his third upper-Coast region crown.
Paint the throne a different shade of blue.
The Gulfport Admirals can write their name in ink at the top of Region 4-7A after taking down D’Iberville on the road, 38-35, and putting an end to Ocean Springs’ four-year hold over the Mississippi Coast’s highest high school football region.
Cooper Crosby crossed the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season and scored four times in powering Gulfport over a Warriors team that has now lost two of their last three since opening the year 6-0.
“We haven’t won it since I’ve been here,” Crosby said after the game. “It’s awesome. (Quarterback) Parker (Nettles) has been a big contributor to that. We’re just rolling right now.”
D’Iberville didn’t make it easy. Crosby’s fourth score was a falling 13-yard touchdown grab that gave the Admirals a comfortable 38-21 lead with less than three minutes remaining in the game.
Warriors quarterback Jordan Walley needed just 38 seconds to respond, scoring on a short keeper to cut the deficit to 38-28. D’Iberville would steal a possession by recovering an onside kick that led to another Walley touchdown. His third, and final, score of the evening would make it a three-point game with under 60 seconds to play.
The rally ended, and the game with it, when Gulfport recovered the ensuing onside kick.
“It’s been a while since we had a game like this and going into the playoffs, we really needed this,” Gulfport coach Blake Pennock said. “I was happy with the way it went. Obviously, we’d like to finish it a little cleaner. But 1-0, that’s all you can say.”
Gulfport’s campaign to a Region 4-7A title has played out the opposite from D’Iberville’s path. The Admirals dropped two of their first three games before beginning what is now a six-game win streak that has made former Ocean Springs boss Pennock the first coach to win the Coast’s highest district at two different schools.
With rings from 2021 and 2022, the third-year Admirals coach is the first to win the upper Coast region three times since the legendary Al Jones did so at George County from 2005-2007.
“The stresses of 7A football, sometimes you get so result-oriented and result-driven, and you forget sometimes why you do this,” Pennock said about Gulfport’s 1-2 start. “We talked a lot to our guys about what brings them joy. We talk about the reasons why they do what they do. I got it in my hand right here, and I read it to them before the games and remind them what it is that makes them play well.”
What Pennock referred to as a “Coming to Jesus” week, Crosby calls them their reasons why. A team meeting called following the 25-24 loss to Petal had every player writing down why they play football and why they want to reach their goals.
That week would end with a 53-13 thrashing of Pascagoula. The Admirals haven’t lost since.
“I felt like that (meeting) really reminded everybody what we were doing and everybody bought back in to what we were doing,” Nettles said.
That was the moment Nettles’ play elevated. The senior completed 71.7% of his passes the next six games with 10 touchdowns to zero interceptions. He added more to the touchdown column Friday, with two going to Crosby and another a 34-yard strike to Javious Hales that built a 24-7 lead in the second quarter.
The offense put up 31 of its points in the first half, where Crosby scored three of his touchdowns, and went into the break with a 31-14 lead.
Gulfport went cold in third quarter and had to punt on its first four possessions. Walley had already ripped off a 75-yard touchdown scramble in the second and led another scoring drive in the third that resulted in an eight-yard rushing touchdown by Malakai Knight.
It was back-to-back D’Iberville possessions stonewalled on fourth-and-short in the final quarter that delayed the Warriors’ rally just long enough.
“No team I’ve been on is like this,” Crosby said. “We work on all cylinders. It’s not just me. Everyone works. Everyone puts in something. It’s not a ‘me’ team it’s just a team. We’ve come a long way.”
Gulfport returns home to play what could be the last regular season game Milner Stadium sees. But not its true final game. The Admirals have secured home field advantage and are awaiting their first visitor from a clustered Region 3-7A.
D’Iberville falls to 3-2 in region play and will now have to past Biloxi next week to hold onto its No. 3 seed.
