By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

JACKSON — To paraphrase a term from another sport, it was “strike three, you’re out!” for the “Southern Six” in prep basketball in about an 18 hour span here at The Mississippi Coliseum in the Overall State Basketball Tournament.
A trio of squads, one boys and a pair of girls, all arrived in this Capital City Wednesday and proceeded to fall one by one in three crucial contests resulting in the end of yet another hoops season in the “Southern Six”.
The Hancock Lady Hawks were first up, with a late afternoon tip-off Wednesday against Neshoba Central in one of the most anticipated match-ups on the hardwood in the state of Mississippi this season.
Both teams entered the game with spectacular 30-1 overall records, and the outcome would be an extremely disappointing end to the season for one team or another.
Unfortunately, it would be Hancock, who was looking to win its first state title in 20 years and fourth overall Gold Ball.

“We picked a bad day to have our worst shooting game of the season,” Jamie Sisco, the Hancock head coach, said after the Hawks went down to a 48-30 defeat against Neshoba Central Wednesday night in the Class 6A semifinals at Mississippi Coliseum.
The Rockets improved to 31-1 and will battle Terry for the 6A state championship at 2 p.m. Saturday. Hancock finished its season 30-2.
Indeed, the stat sheet told the story. The Hawks only made 8 of 35 shots from the field, including 1 of 14 from 3-point range.
And Hancock’s shooting woes showed up at the foul line, as well. The Hawks got plenty of chances at the line, but only converted 13 of 24 free throws.
Then, a little more than two hours later, the Pascagoula Panthers carried their impressive 29-game win streak into the Class 6A Final Four against upset-minded Ridgeland. It marked the eighth trip in the past 13 years for PHS to the Big House for the overall State Tournament.
But, in the words of Coach Bill Yoast, the Panthers will always “remember, forever, the night they played the Titans” as Pascagoula’s bid for history was denied in the most crushing way possible.
Pascagoula was looking to win the first basketball state championship in school history and in addition the first ever state title for any high school in Jackson County.

Ridgeland used a variety of defenses to stymie the Panthers, and the Titans took control in the fourth quarter to score a 48-42 upset Wednesday night in the Class 6A semifinals at Mississippi Coliseum.
Ridgeland (24-9) will face Olive Branch for the 6A state championship at 4 p.m. Saturday. Pascagoula’s season ends at 29-2.

Pascagoula has yet to record a win in those last eight trips here to The Mississippi Coliseum.
“We’ve been grinding all year, so this was nothing new to us,” Ridgeland head coach Terron McIntyre said. “We’ve played a tough schedule, and they were a tough opponent, but we were ready for it. This was a collective team win. I didn’t care about them being 29-1, because tough competition is played up this way. We’ve said from day one that we were going to get here. We’ve preached to those guys that we were going to fight, and we kept doing what we do. And once you got here, anything can happen in the Big House.”
As dawn broke on the Big House Thursday morning, only the St. Martin Lady Yellow Jackets were still standing amongst the “Southern Six” title contenders.
But, right around Noon, those hopes were dashed as well leaving Jackson County without a state basketball championship in either boys or girls play for 102 years now.

The Lady Yellow Jackets fell behind quickly 7-0 and never totally recovered falling to Germantown 50-43 in the first-ever Class 7A Final Four Overall State Semifinal round. The Lady Mavericks led wire-to-wire in earning a trip to Saturday’s state championship contest where they’ll once again face Tupelo with a Gold Ball on the line.
St. Martin ends the season at 25-8. It marked just the second time in program history that the Lady Yellow Jackets had qualified for the Final Four in The Big House.
So that’s that. No squad from the “Southern Six has won a state basketball championship for a decade now, since Gulfport won the Class 6A boys crown in 2014. It marks the longest such span without a boys or girls state title in almost 70 years, since Agricola High School won the first-ever crown in 1955 on the girls side of things and Hancock North Central boys won it in 1960. The longest drought before the current one in the past 69 years was six seasons.
And that drought will continue for at least another year.