By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Ocean Springs plays host to Gulfport on Friday in what will be one of the biggest regular season games for the Greyhounds in the last decade.
First-year head coach Ryne Long and his OSHS crew are closing in on its first region title in seven years and will welcome in Gulfport as the Admirals sail down the Mississippi Gulf Coast a few miles east for the second game in a three game battle royale for supremacy atop Region 4-7A.
The Greyhounds will be shooting for their third regular season league crown in the past decade with one more win over Gulfport.

The Greyhounds overcame a 4-1 deficit with a big four run rally in the fifth frame to pull out a 6-4 road win in Region 4-7A play over Gulfport at Herbert Wilson Field Tuesday night. In the process, Ocean Springs moved to 11-2 in the region race and to the verge of a league crown two full games ahead of the second place Admirals which suddenly sits at 9-4 in the loop. Ocean Springs now needs just. one more win in the final two games to secure its first league title since 2017.
“We were lucky to sneak out of there with a win,” Ryne Long said. “They are really good, very well coached and balanced top to bottom. We kinda traded blows taking advantage of one another’s miscues.”
The Greyhounds went into the decisive fifth frame trailing by those three runs, but OSHS loaded the bases with one out and Chris Fox drew a walk with the sacks full to make it 4-2. Jack Jordan then scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-3, and the Greyhounds knotted the game up when Kristian Dillard drew a bases-loaded walk. Adam Clower followed that with an RBI-ground out to give OSHS a 5-4 lead that it would never relinquish.

“When we pitch well and play solid defense, we can be pretty good.” Long added. “When we grind out some at bats and put some pressure on an opponent and make them earn 21 outs, we’re usually successful. We’ve just got to keep doing the things that we do well. This is is a big series against a proven power on the coast in Gulfport. They have been there and done it in big games and that’s a proven winner in that other dugout. This is what high school baseball is all about.”

Friday’s game is set to be the biggest regular season contest for the Greyhounds since traveling to St. Martin in the final week of Region 7-6A play in mid-April of the 2017 season.
Ocean Springs and a strong George County squad were battling neck-and-neck for the league lead and had split a pair of games in league action as that final week of play unfolded, and St. Martin knocked off OSHS 3-1 earlier in that week before hosting game two in the home and home series.

In that game, now Chicago White Sox opening day starting pitcher Garrett Crochet saved the day for Ocean Springs as he tossed a complete game one-hit shutout in blanking the Yellow Jackets 4-0. Crochet struck out 12, walked three and scattered just one single by St. Martin in helping the Greyhounds clinch the top seed in the region for just the second time in four seasons.
Before getting drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the annual Major League Draft that summer and then departing for the University of Tennessee a few months later, Crochet led OSHS to an opening round series playoff win over Brandon in three games before being swept by Gulfport in the Class 6A South State semifinals.

The series marked a little revenge for the Admirals over OSHS as the Greyhounds had registered a regular season shutout behind six strong innings from Crochet two months earlier.
The Admirals went on to slip past perennial state power Oak Grove in three games in the South State finals and took on Tupelo in the Class 6A state title series.
The Golden Wave won the first and third games in the championship match-up to take the state championship.

Crochet was named the Opening Day starter by the White Sox this season and has been one of the more consistent pitchers for Chicago so far in the young campaign.