The regular season of the 2025 high school campaign came to a close last week for many area teams, some with losses, some with wins. Behind a strong second-half effort, Heritage Academy ended Region 2-4A play with a comeback victory while Columbus’s late rally fell short in another loss. Starkville Academy heads to the postseason trying to bounce back from a rout at Hartfield Academy.
Heritage Academy 38, Lamar School 22
In its regular-season finale, Heritage Academy was down 16-14 at halftime at Lamar School on Friday and head coach Tobias Smith took the break as an opportunity to relay an important message to his team.
“Just stay the course, stay positive and keep plugging,” Smith recalled.
Keep plugging they did.
Behind 227 all-purpose yards and three touchdown catches from Xzavier Webber, the Patriots ended their regular season on a high note in a District 2-4A win that snapped a two-game losing streak to the Raiders. Lamar managed to tack on another score on its first drive of the third quarter but was held scoreless the rest of the way as the Patriots took control in all phases. Heritage scored 14 points to open the second half and closed the game by adding 10 more points in the final frame.
The win left the Patriots with an 8-2 finish to regular season with 4-1 mark in district games. Their efforts have landed them a berth into the MAIS Division II playoffs where they’ll open the postseason on Friday hosting Oak Forest Academy, something the team is excited about.
“I think the morale of the team is good,” he said. ”I think we are in a spot where this is exactly where we wanted to be going into the season: going into the playoffs with a good seed and getting the chance to host a home game and put ourselves in a position to go win that game. I like where we are and I like my team. We just have to keep doing what we are doing and stay healthy and keep competing.”
Hartfield Academy 42, Starkville Academy 20
The Volunteers ended their regular-season campaign last Friday in a loss at District 2-4A champion Hartfield Academy.
Behind a burst of some explosive plays, the Hawks raced out to a 21-0 heading into the second quarter and took a 42-6 cushion to halftime, before which Jackson Knight caught a touchdown pass from quarterback Jack Northcutt to get Starkville Academy on the board. The second half is where Starkville Academy began to produce on offense, as running back Lawson Mullins ran in a score and quarterback Sam Wall got into the fray, firing a touchdown throw to Jackson Pounds.
“The guys played hard. They came out the gate playing hard and played hard every single snap, even in the second half when we subbed down to our second string,” head coach Chase Nicholson said. “Our guys played hard the whole time, moved the ball well, gave ourselves a chance. (Hartfield) just had some big-play guys on their side who were hard to handle, but our guys competed hard with them the whole time.
“Big plays got us. I thought our guys did a good job trying to make them have to earn it. We had a couple of sacks, had a couple of (tackles for loss) along the way. They got into some 3rd-and-long situations and we’re forced to go to some of their big-time playmakers to pick up the first down. … We made them earn it.”
The Vols concluded their regular season 6-4 overall and 2-2 in conference games and earned a trip to the Division II playoffs. The team begins the postseason on Friday at home against Copiah Academy and Nicholson said his team has moved past their loss and is focused on what is on the horizon.
“The regular season (has been) great. Six and four is a great regular season,” Nicholson said with a twinge of sarcasm. “We’re happy, excited, we’re going to enjoy it and talk about it later. Right now we’re 0-0 and have to play and have to play Copiah on Friday.”
Pontotoc 28, Columbus 20
It was a tale of two halves for the Falcons last Friday.
The first two quarters of play left the team discussing how to bounce back from a 28-0 deficit at halftime, and in the second half the team put those thoughts into action.
Columbus rallied for 20 unanswered points in the fourth quarter but it wasn’t quite enough to snap its eight-game losing streak. A touchdown catch by Jaylen Baldwin from Henderson gave Columbus its first points of the game. Henderson then connected with Cameron Mitchell from 79 yards out and punched in a 5-yard run to make it a one-score game late in the contest. On the following kickoff the Falcons went for their third onside kick of the game. Columbus had recovered its first two tries, both leading to scores, and for a second it looked as if the team was going to go 3-for-3 on recoveries, but the Falcons lost control of the ball and the Warriors leaped on it and were able to kneel out the game.
It was Columbus’ (1-8, 0-4 Region 1-5A) second one-score loss to end a season with five total losses decided by 14 or fewer points.
“Definelty disappointed,” head coach Barrin Simpson said. “We thought we would be able to make a playoff run, but I feel like we underachieved a lot of a bit, not a little bit. I thought there were plenty of games we should have been able to win; we had it in our grasp. Like the Lafayette (27-14) game, this past game against Pontotoc, against Neshoba Central (17-6). We had some opportunities to take the game against Caledonia (34-14). It just didn’t feel like we played up to our potential in a couple of those games.
“The discipline issues, being a young bunch and just trying to cement the culture, I think that became an issue for us.”
The Falcons end their season Friday at region champion West Point and will miss the postseason for the third straight year. Simpson wants to see his team battle and end the season on a high note.
“Like I told them last week, ‘There’s been some adversity and I want to see us improve,’” he said. “That’s what we did last week and you want to build on that. My goal is to go out there and win the game and put your best foot forward and put your best effort on film and go play to win. I never saw a game where we thought we were going to lose or expect to lose. No, we expect to win and go out there and play to win.”
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