HATTIESBURG — West Point needed a stop on third down badly with less than two minutes left in the third quarter of Friday night’s MHSAA Class 5A championship game.
Picayune faced a tough third-and-10 on its own 20-yard line after getting called for a holding penalty on first down that turned first-and-10 into first-and-20.
All the Green Wave had to do was prevent the Maroon Tide from getting 10 yards, but as became the storyline of Friday’s game, they weren’t able to stop Picayune’s high-powered offense.
Brady Robertson found an open Darrell Smith, who evaded multiple Green Wave defenders on his way to an 80-yard touchdown reception, opening up a 10-point lead for the Tide with 1:15 left in the third quarter.
The lead, despite a West Point comeback, was too much for a defense that couldn’t get stops as Picayune (15-0) won its seventh state title, a 31-21 victory.
“We didn’t get the breaks that we needed, the breaks we were trying to get,” West Point head coach Chris Chambless said. “We knew it was going to take a couple of breaks, but our guys fought hard.”
“They played hard the whole game, and that’s all we ask to do — to give us a chance, and we did that.”
West Point (11-3) barely had control of the ball in the first half but held a 14-9 advantage at the half thanks to the strong arm of Quinterion Tillman-Evans.
He had just two passes in the first half, both resulting in lengthy receiving touchdowns to Ahmari Cox. The first was a 41-yard pass toward the end of the first quarter, and the second was an 86-yard pass where Cox burned his defender for an easy run to the end zone.
Both those plays happened within a six-minute span and caught the Maroon Tide shell shocked.
However, despite the two quick touchdowns, Picayune controlled nearly 20 minutes of possession in the first half, keeping the Green Wave defense on the field.
That proved to be costly in the second half as the play of four-star Oregon commit Dante Dowdell and the Maroon Tide running game exposed West Point, rushing for 358 yards as a team.
“Picayune is a great team,” Chambless said. “We knew that coming in. We knew what it was going to take to win. We played hard, we just didn’t get those breaks.”
Dowdell himself ran for three touchdowns and 190 yards in the win, averaging 6.8 yards a carry for Picayune.
West Point was able to establish more sustained drives in the second half, but at that point, after a 22-yard touchdown run from Dowdell with 8:20 left in the third, the Green Wave were playing from behind.
Dowdell’s final rushing touchdown of the game, a 37-yard run with 6:53 left in the fourth quarter, sucked the life out of an energetic West Point bench to start Friday’s game.
The Green Wave were in it and the fans responded accordingly, but Picayune, behind a strong contingent of fans on the opposite side of the field, proved to be that much more of a difference.
West Point shot itself in the foot with costly penalties in the second half and a crucial fumble from Kahnen Daniels with 5:35 left.
“We got up before halftime, and then after that, we made a mental mistake or two,” West Point quarterback Kahnen Daniels said. “We came back, but after that, it was just a tough game.”
From that point, all Picayune had to do was run the ball, avoid turnovers and run the clock out against a tired and depleted West Point defense.
Like the past two years, West Point’s season ended in defeat in the state championship game, and this one might have hurt the worst of the three.
“We came here expecting to win, and it hurts,” Chambless said. “Look at these guys behind me. It hurts when you don’t. It’s supposed to hurt, but we’ve got to get back to work Monday and get ready to go again.”
Picayune 31, West Point 21
Picayune (15-0) 3 6 15 7 — 31
West Point (11-3) 7 7 0 7 — 21
First quarter
P — Morgan Craft 27 FG, clock 6:10
WP — Ahmari Cox 41 pass from Quinterion Tillman-Evans (Corbin Hendricks kick), clock 3:59
Second quarter
WP — Cox 86 pass from Tillman-Evans (Hendricks kick), clock 9:00
P — Dante Dowdell 1 run (kick failed), clock 3:20
Third quarter
P — Dowdell 22 run (Chris Davis run), clock 8:20
P — Darrell Smith 80 pass from Brady Robertson (Craft kick), clock 1:15
Fourth quarter
WP — Kahnen Daniels 8 run (Hendricks kick), clock 11:54
P — Dowdell 37 run (Craft kick), clock 6:53
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