By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

OCEAN SPRINGS — Ocean Springs forced a game three in its first-ever Class 7A South State playoff series Saturday night.

The Greyhounds evened their series with perennial state power Petal taking a 4-2 win on the road. The third and deciding game in the series is set for Ocean Springs Monday at 7 p.m. Petal came into “The Tom” Friday night to open the best-of-three affair and returned home with a 5-2 win.

On the brink of seeing its season come to a sudden end on Saturday night, the Greyhounds trailed 2-1 entering the top of the sixth stanza before rallying to pull out the win with three runs over the final two innings.

“That was a big win obviously to stay alive,” first-year OSHS head coach Ryne Long said, after the game. “It was a struggle early, we hit some balls hard right at them and they made some really good defensive plays. We just battled, this time of year you gotta have guys step up in big spots and we did enough tonight to win.”

Trailing by that aforementioned 2-1 deficit, Maddox Moreland wasted no time in tying the game up as he led off the top of the sixth with a solo home run to left field.

With things still in that 2-2 deadlock entering the seventh, Simon Kruppa reached base on a one-out single and Cannon Hensarling followed with an RBI-double to give the Greyhounds their first lead since the third frame at 3-2. Hensarling took third on the throw home, and Jack Jordan then provided OSHS with an insurance run on a run-scoring sacrifice fly to result in the final 4-2 count.

“Maddox with the huge homer in the sixth to tie it was certainly big,” Long added. “And the top of our order came up big in the seventh. We gave away some at-bats early I thought being a little too anxious at the plate, but we battled and had some clutch hits when we needed it.”

Ocean Springs got off to a good start, as Grant Russell’s RBI-doubled scored Moreland with one out in the top of the second stanza. Moreland led off the inning with a walk.

But the advantage would be short-lived, as Petal bounced back immediately with two runs in the bottom of the third to take that 2-1 lead and set up the climactic ending.

Will Blevins was solid on the mound for the Greyhounds, turning in six innings of work to pick up the win. He scattered just three hits while striking out six and walking three. He was hurt a bit by a big error the Greyhounds committed in the third that allowed one of the runs to score.

Once OSHS took the lead in the top of the seventh, Griffin Frye came on to close out the win with three strikeouts to earn a save.

“We pitched it really well,” Long concluded. “Will Blevins was as good tonight as I’ve seen him. Can’t say enough about how gutsy of an outing that was. And Frye came in and shut the door in the seventh.”

Hensarling had two hits to pace OSHS at the plate. Four of the Greyhounds’ six hits were of the extra base variety, in Moreland’s homer and doubles from Hensarling, Russell and Chris Fox.

Fox and Kristian Dillard also each made big diving plays in the outfield for outs to keep the game at 2-1 for OSHS.