By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

LONG BEACH — Long Beach made some improvement in year two of the Jacob Massey era last season.
After all, the Bearcats won two games and broke a 20-plus game losing streak in the process.
Now, the question becomes can the Bearcats continue that progression in year three of the Massey regime despite competing in one of the toughest Class 6A regions in the state?
“I think the difference is night and day since I got here three years ago,” Massey said, in a recent interview. “We’ve got a lot of kids buying into what we are trying to do. We’re probably not quite as talented as some of the teams in our region so we have to work to find an edge.”
Long Beach hasn’t managed to earn a spot in the South State playoffs since 2011, and the Bearcats will have to battle perennial power Picayune as well as George County, Pascagoula and Hancock among others for one of the top four spots in Region 4-6A this season in order to snap that drought.

Massey will return a trio of veterans on offense in quarterback Will Brady and backfield mates Andre Windham and Junior Brown in the quest for a postseason berth. Brady is back for his third year behind center while Brown ran for over 1,400 yards and 20 touchdowns last season and the versatile Windham plays several positions on both sides of the ball.
The Bearcats return eight starters on offense and nine on defense this season.
“We’ve got some guys coming back that have played a lot of football for us over the past few years and that’s not always the case for us,” Massey added. “I think we’ll have a good team chemistry-wise.”

Long Beach began last season with three straight losses to extend that now forgotten long losing streak, but the Bearcats bounced back to pick up a pair of wins in a three week span against two respectable foes beating Purvis 34-20 and then South Jones 35-34 with a loss to Petal sandwiched in between.
The two wins were the most in a season for Long Beach in five years, since the 2018 season when it went 3-8.
“We had the best summer both in attendance and effort-wise since we’ve been here,” Massey concluded. “We’re looking to carry that over into the regular season.”