By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PICAYUNE — For the second straight season, Picayune will play an opponent from the neighboring state of Louisiana on the football field for the first time ever.
And, for the second consecutive season, the perennial power Maroon Tide will not meet one of its longest-running neighborhood rivals.
Picayune will host Northshore High out of Slidell in week two of the regular season on Friday, Sept 6th. It marks the first meeting ever on the football field between the Maroon Tide and the Panthers despite the fairly close proximity of the schools. It will also mark the first time Picayune will face off against an opponent from Slidell in 17 years, since the Maroon Tide beat Slidell High 21-14 at then Triplett Stadium in 2007.
“We always have a hard time trying to complete our schedule, especially now with just five region games,” Picayune head coach Cody Stogner, now entering his fifth season at the helm of his alma mater, said Sunday.

Northshore has an assistant coach that many prep football followers in the “Southern Six” will recognize as former St. Stanislaus head coach Bill Condies is the Panthers’ offensive coordinator.
Last season, powerful Catholic High out of Baton Rouge, La., came to Picayune and ended the Maroon Tide’s 27-game win streak when the Bears pulled out a controversial 36-35 win in overtime. It marked the first-ever meeting between the schools on the gridiron.
Also, Stogner, who has guided Picayune to a pair of Class 5A state championships in his first four years on the job, picked up Petal to give Picayune 11 regular season games once again instead of just 10 like last season. The Maroon Tide played 11 regular season games in both 2021 and 2022, the years in which Picayune went a combined 29-1 and won back-to-back Class 5A state titles.
Picayune travels to Petal in week six, on Friday, Oct. 6th, just before heading back home to host Pascagoula to open Region 4-6A play.
Stogner said he had mixed feelings about filling the 11th playing date.
“I would love to have that week off before district,” he added. “But I think we get better by playing. You can’t really mimic those actual game reps.”

It will mark the first time that Picayune and the Panthers have faced off in 10 years and the first trip for the Maroon Tide to Petal since 2013. Picayune opened the season on the road in Petal in 2013 and also played there in week two of the 2011 campaign, and proceeded to go on to win the Class 5A state championship in both of those seasons under the guidance of veteran head coach Dodd Lee.
In addition, Picayune and arch-rival Pearl River Central are not scheduled to meet for the second straight season. The schools, which sit just about six miles a part, had played 20 times over 18 consecutive seasons up until last season when reclassification split them into different regions.
Unless a match-up happens this year in the Class 6A South State playoffs, this will be the first time in two decades that the Maroon Tide and Blue Devils went two consecutive seasons without playing one another in football.
“I’m just waiting to see about district realignment for next year,” Stogner concluded. “There’s a possibility that we could be in the same region again next season.”