By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

BAY ST. LOUIS — Two teams struggling for a win collide in Region 8-4A play Friday night here at McCullouch Stadium with what in all likelihood will be a battle for the fourth and final seed in the league standings for playoff purposes.
Moss Point visits Bay High in a match-up of a pair of teams with a combined record of 1-11. The Tigers from Jackson County are 0-1 in the region race and although this is the first region game of the year for the Hancock County group of Tigers their postseason lives may well be on the line.

Once mighty Moss Point is off to its second 0-6 start in three seasons for the first time in over 70 years. Moss Point dropped its region-opener to visiting Poplarville last week 28-14 to fall to that 0-6 mark.
Moss Point, which finished 2-7 last year and missed the state playoffs for the first time in 12 years, is in the midst of its worst span in prep football since the 1951-1953 seasons, when the Tigers went a combined 2-29-1 over those three years including an 0-11 season in 1952. That was the last time ever that an MPHS football team went win-less throughout an entire campaign.

Moss Point won five state championships on the gridiron during an 18 season span from 1983-2000 including back-to-back titles in 1996-1997. The Tigers also played for another state crown in 2001. That was the last appearance in the state finals for MPHS.
Since Lewis Sims left his alma mater as head football coach in 2011 to take a similar post across Jefferson Street at Pascagoula High, Moss Point is 5-11 in 16 state playoff appearances. Sims replaced Jerry Alexander, who led the Tigers to four of those aforementioned state titles in his 17 years at the helm of the Tigers from 1991-2007.

Alexander replaced the legendary Billy Wayne Miller, who guided MPHS to its first state crown in 1983.
Since Sims departed, first-year Moss Point head coach Julius Bridges is the sixth Tiger leader in 14 seasons, including Eugene Harmon who led MPHS for six seasons from 2017-2022 and won half of that playoff total since 2011.

Bay High is just 3-12 all-time in the state playoffs with all three wins coming over the past 12 years. The Tigers have never played for a South State title in football, with their best season coming in 2012 when they won two playoff games as the second seed out of Region 8-4A before falling to Greene County 28-26 in the Class 4A South State semifinals.

Bay High won their only district title in program history in 1985. The Tigers missed the state playoffs for seven straight seasons for 2013-2019, but have qualified for the postseason in three of the past four seasons under the direction of current head coach Jeremy Turcotte who ended that playoff hiatus when he took over in 2020.
Bay High comes into Friday’s “showdown” with Moss Point at 1-5 overall and on a five game losing streak since a season-opening win over Class 1A Resurrection. The Tigers fell on the road to MAIS school Presbyterian Christian 34-14 last week.