Week 11’s top stories: A playoff points-fest and a stunning upset on the Coast
The final week of regular season football wasn’t as quiet as expected on the Mississippi Coast.
The majority of games either had no playoff bearing or were played simply out of formality. But that didn’t mean the slate couldn’t produce a seismic upset before the postseason begins.
The lower classes played opening round games and two Coast teams survived to the next round. Poplarville took care of Forrest County AHS, but Pass Christian had its hands full with South Pike.
The Pirates’ busy win and the Region 6 stunner lead the top stories of the week.
Three hours and 21 penalties later
We got a playoff winner. Pass Christian survived arguably the top four-seed in the 4A bracket Friday, beating South Pike 52-32 in the opening round.
“That third quarter felt like it took an hour,” coach Jeff Stockstill said following the game. And it might have. It opened with Larkin Lewis returning the kickoff 90 yards to the house. Those were the first six of 36 total points scored in 12 minutes of game clock.
Throw in a number of penalties and officials’ timeouts and the result is what felt like an entire half squeezed into one quarter. By the end of the night the Pirates had set a school record for points in a postseason game and became the first 10-win team in the program’s history.
The positive of opening with South Pike is a more manageable second round contest. The Pirates host a Morton team that is 2-3 against opponents with winning records.
Who beat who?
It was not a typo. Pearl River Central defeated Picayune, 28-21, for its first win in the rivalry since 2015. The average score of the eight games in between? Maroon Tide 51, Blue Devils 5.
Pearl River Central never scored more than once in a game during that stretch and scored 42 points total, which is less than what Picayune scored in just last year’s game.
Picayune already had the region in hand. Did it rest its starters? Nope. The Tide were put on their heels quickly and leaned on the usual suspects. Star running back Xavier Dennis scored all three of Picayune’s touchdowns. Alabama commit Nolan Wilson made 11 tackles and two sacks. It was not enough to extend what had become a 28-game district winning streak.
Blue Devils’ quarterback Titus Feaster was responsible for all four of PRC’s touchdowns, throwing two and rushing for two. The dynamic trio of Qorday Russell, John Feaster Jr. and Kendall Morrison combined for 346 all-purpose yards.
Second year coach John Feaster has PRC at 7-3 so far, its best season since the 11-2 2015 campaign. He and the Blue Devils have another chance to play spoiler as the four-seed Hattiesburg will visit in the first round of the 6A playoff.
Can Region 4-7A compete?
The question has been asked of the Coast’s highest-class region every year for some time now and the answer has always been the same: Not really.
Ocean Springs has gotten to the semifinal round twice in the last three years. Those are the only two occasions in the last decade where the region came one game away from the state championship.
D’Iberville was the last of the group to win a state title and it did so all the way back in 2002. And it wasn’t even as a member of the Coast’s top class, then. The most recent state championship directly from the region was Moss Point’s in 2000.
Is this the field that upends a quarter-century of futility? Region 3 champ Oak Grove is a far cry from its dominant run from 2018-2023. Two-seed Petal already has a 10-point loss to two-seed Ocean Springs. The reigning South State champ Brandon is having its worst year since 2020 and underwent a surprise mid-season coaching change.
Led by top-seed Gulfport and the Greyhounds, this could be the Coast’s best opportunity in recent memory to shake up the state.
Thursday’s scores
D’Iberville 28, Biloxi 0
Gulfport 45, Harrison Central 13
Hancock 41, Long Beach 13
Pascagoula 49, Gautier 12
Pearl River Central 28, Picayune 21
Ocean Springs 49, St. Martin 21
Stone 35, East Central 21
Purvis 30, Vancleave 0
Friday’s scores
No. 1 Columbia 49, No. 4 Moss Point 0
No. 1 Pass Christian 52, No. 4 South Pike 32
No. 3 Poplarville 49, No. 2 Forrest County AHS 20
No. 1 Franklin County 42, No. 4 St. Patrick 0
Forest Hill 32, George County 25
This story was originally published November 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
