By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HATTIESBURG — Last year, the Pascagoula football team traveled here to Hattiesburg to open the Class 6A South State playoffs and registered a close one point win over the Tigers 7-6.
Then, exactly three weeks later, the Panther boys basketball squad also returned to the campus of Hattiesburg and also slipped away with a one point win at 55-54 over the home team.
This year, fans of both Pascagoula and Hattiesburg teams won’t have to wait near as long between those contests on the hardwood and gridiron, but the visiting teams hope to come back to the coast with similar results.

On Thursday night, the PHS hoops squad will head to Hattiesburg to face the Tigers in an early season showdown of perennial state powers.
The game was originally scheduled for Friday, but was moved up a day for good reason.
And that reason is because the next day the Panther football team will return to D.I. Patrick Stadium on the HHS campus to face the Tigers as well in the Class 6A South State semifinal round.

“’I’ve heard of the same schools playing in boys and girls basketball playoffs in the same round and baseball and softball, but not football/basketball in this type of situation,” veteran journalist Creg Stephenson, who covered prep sports in south Mississippi for two decades and is now an award winning sports writer with the Alabama Media Group, said. “I’m not saying it’s never happened, but it’s highly unusual.”

First up, the unbeaten Pascagoula basketball team takes its perfect 4-0 mark on the road to the Hub City to face the Tigers, which sit at 2-0 and also undefeated on the young campaign.
Both teams are coming off of lopsided wins in their latest games late last week, as PHS smacked visiting Ocean Springs 83-50 and Hattiesburg thumped Laurel on the road 69-44.
Both of those games were on Thursday, and while the trip to Hattiesburg will be the next action for PHS the Tigers are slated to face rival Oak Grove Tuesday night.
Pascagoula’s win over the Tigers last season came fairly early in a school record 29 game win streak that ended in the overall Class 6A state semifinal round in Jackson.
Hattiesburg won the Class 5A state championship in 2022.

Then, right at 24 hours later, football takes center stage in the Hub City as the Panthers look to recreate their upset magic over home-standing Hattiesburg for the second straight season.
Hattiesburg’s football team also comes into the week unbeaten at 11-0 while Pascagoula is a solid 9-2 overall.
Last year, Pascagoula quarterback Silas Corder, ironically enough a Southern Miss commit, helped provide Pascagoula with its only points in that postseason win over the Tigers when he hooked up with wide-out Chris Campbell on the first possession of the game for an 80-yard touchdown toss to give PHS a lead it would never relinquish early in the game.

Campbell is also back for PHS this season as the Panthers aim to claim a spot in the South State championship game for the second time in five seasons. He, along with fellow receivers Darrius Carter and D’Lass Nunnery, give PHS and Corder one of the top pass-catching crews in the state.