The Moss Point Tigers boys basketball team is taking a trip for the Thanksgiving holidays.
Starting Wednesday, the Tigers and top recruit Kedrick Osby will be competing in the five-day, eight-team Kevin Brown Memorial Tournament of Champions prep basketball event taking place in Washington, Ill. Washington is in North Central Illinois, just outside of Peoria, Ill.
Moss Point began play Wednesday night against the host school, Washington. There are eight teams from different parts of the country competing for the crown in the 17th annual invitational tournament.
Besides the Tigers and the host team, the Washington Panthers, the other schools in the tourney are the Blytheville Chickasaws (Blytheville, Ark.), the Coral Glades Jaguars (Coral Glades, Fla.), the Lincoln Park Lions (Chicago, Ill.), and the St. Paul Swordsman (Santa Fe, Cal.) as well as the St. Pius X- St. Matthias Academy Warriors (Downey, Cal.) and the Urbana Tigers (Urbana, Ill.)
The Tigers will play four games over four days, wrapping up play on Saturday, before returning home.
The 6-foot-8 Osby and the Tigers are off to a 1-2 start so far on the young campaign.
Holiday hoops
While the MPHS boys are spending the Thanksgiving week up north, there’s been quite a bit of holiday hoops action on the hardwood in the “Southern Six” this week as well.
In Picayune Tuesday, the Biloxi girls won the Picayune Thanksgiving Tournament with an easy 48-11 win over the host Lady Tide team. Tuesday’s win, combined with a 33-18 victory over St. Martin on Monday afternoon, kept the Lady Indians perfect on the season at 7-0. Shaneal Copuz tallied a game-high 17 points to pace the Lady Indians in the win over the Lady Yellow Jackets.
Corpuz was named Most Valuable Player for the event, and she was joined by teammate Zaniya Johnson on the All-Tourney team.
The SMHS girls bounced back on Tuesday afternoon, though, and knocked off George County in the consolation game of the girls bracket of the Picayune Thanksgiving Tournament. Junior forward La’dymein Lafayette paced the Lady Jackets recording a double-double in the winning effort, scoring 17 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Zee Allen added 12 points for SMHS, while Yvette Nathan, Janila Curtis, and Kiyara Lee all chipped in 8 points a piece to the winning effort.
Lafayette and George County’s De Kari McNair each also were selected to the all-tourney team as well.
Gulfport sweeps titles
The home-standing Gulfport boys and girls swept the championship games in the Gulfport Thanksgiving Tournament at Bert Jenkins Gym Tuesday night.
Both squads defeated Madison-Ridgeland Academy in the title tilts. The Admirals took a 59-52 win and are now 6-1. Kamari Mitchell tallied. team-high 16 points to pace GHS and Matt Krass chipped in 14 points.
Gulfport beat Bay High 55-26 in opening round play on Monday to advance to the title tilt.
The Lady Admirals knocked off MRA in the championship game as well winning 54-46 as Gulfport secured both titles in the two-day event.
The Biloxi boys took the consolation game, beating Bay High 60-38 while the Mobile Blount girls beat the Bay High girls 47-40 in the other consolation game.
On Monday, MRA standout Josh Hubbard tallied a game-high 35 points as the Patriots beat Biloxi 82-74 in opening-round action. Hubbard is considered one of the top recruits in the state.
St. Martin boys win two
The St. Martin boys were originally scheduled to host their own Joe Barlow holiday tourney, but a team pulled out at the last second and caused the Yellow Jackets of veteran head coach Charlie Pavlus to just play single games on Monday and Tuesday instead.
The SMHS boys picked up a pair of wins, however, to head into Thanksgiving, beating a pair of visiting teams from Alabama on consecutive days.
On Tuesday, the Yellow Jackets whipped Chickasaw 64-38 as Ghabe Colding tallied a game-high 22 points and Kaleb Bradley added 9 points and 6 rebounds to the winning effort.
St. Martin knocked off Theodore 40-30 on Monday.
