It was a mixed bag of results for Class 6A squads in the “Southern Sox” Tuesday night in the opening round of the state playoffs.
Five area teams were in action, but only two survived as the other three saw their respective seasons come o. sudden halt.
The Gulfport girls traveled along with their male counterparts to Terry to open the playoffs, and while the Lady Admirals advanced with an easy 56-31 win the Terry Bulldogs stunned the Admirals 72-56.
The Lady Admirals got a game-high 17 points from Maddie Odell while Saniah Price added 16 points to the winning cause. The Gulfport girls moved to 22-9 overall, and the win sets up a huge second-round match-up in the “Southern Six” Friday night as Gulfport travels to D’Iberville, which had an opening-round bye.
The Admirals saw an impressive season end with a thud, and they wrap up the campaign at 24-7. Kamari Mitchell finished with 27 points to lead Gulfport.
Terry will now travel to Pascagoula on Saturday in second-round action. A Gulfport win Tuesday night would have resulted in the fourth meeting of the season between the Panthers and the Admirals, and Gulfport swept Pascagoula 3-0 during the regular season.
Elsewhere, Harrison Central was the only other local team to pick up a win Tuesday night, as the home-standing Red Rebels dispatched Pearl 63-35 to advance into the second round. Aujaylen Barron 15pts to lead all scores and Jonavin Khan added nine points for Harrison Central
The Red Rebels will travel to Brandon Saturday night in the second round.
Meanwhile, the only one of the trio of teams in the “Southern Six” to lose at home Tuesday night was the D’Iberille Warriors, who dropped a 51-43 decision to visiting Oak Grove.
The Warriors led throughout most of the first half, and thanks in part to eight points from Kameron Patterson over the first two-quarters DHS took a slim two-point lead at 22-20 into halftime.
The tide turned for the visiting band of Warriors in the third frame as they out-scored the home tribe of Warriors 15-8 in that period to take a 35-30 lead into the fourth quarter.
Any hopes of a comeback by the home team were dashed in the final stanza as OaK Grove out-scored DHS 16-13 in that span to seal the eight-point win thanks in part to eight points including a pair of 3-pointers by Chaz Oatis to wrap up the win.
Oatis led Oak Grove with a game-high 16 points, a total that included four 3-pointers. Patterson paced D’Iberville with 13 points, and Juan Santiago dropped in a pair of treys in the final frame as the Warriors attempted a comeback but to no avail.
Oak Grove travels to Northwest Rankin Saturday night for second-round action.
Elsewhere, Ocean Springs traveled to Meridian Tuesday night and drooped a hard-fought 74-64 decision to the home-standing Wildcats bringing an end to the season for the Greyhounds.
