By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PICAYUNE — As far as Picayune is concerned, for the third straight season, a team is going into the South State championship game unbeaten.
And now, ironically enough, the Maroon Tide hopes to be the one that breaks that streak of perfect teams going on to play for the state championship.
Picayune hosts undefeated Hattiesburg, which sits 12-0, Friday for the Class 6A South State Championship at Lee-Triplett Stadium and with a berth in the upcoming state title tilt one the line.
Last season, Picayune traveled to Soso to face unbeaten West Jones and came away with a 42-13 thumping from the Mustangs as WJHS went on to finish the season at 14-0 and capture the Class 6A state title with a 23-3 win over Granada.

Two years ago, The Maroon Tide had a 14-0 mark when they hosted Gautier in the Class 5A South State title tilt and Picayune dismantled the Gators 49-14 and went on to beat West Point the following week 31-21 for the state championship.
Picayune head coach Cody Stogner sees some similarities between last year’s bunch of Mustangs and this years band of Tigers.
“Very similar,” he said Tuesday after practice. “Big, fast and stingy on defense with a lot of playmakers on offense.”
Stogner his trying to get his squad back to its third state championship game in his five years at the helm of the Maroon Tide and Picayune is attempting to reach the title round in a span of three out of four seasons for the second time in the past six seasons.
“It means everything,” Stogner added. “It’s where we strive to get to is to have a chance to hold that gold ball up. Our guys set goals not to be mediocre in the game and in life. This is a standard that has been put into place by the players at Picayune.”

Picayune stands 11-2 and comes into this battle on a nine game win streak while Hattiesburg is considered perhaps the hottest team in the state with that unbeaten 12-0 mark. This is the first meeting between the two teams in three years, since the Maroon Tide took a 35-13 decision from the visiting Tigers in the opening round of the state playoffs on Picayune’s march to the 2021 state championship.
Overall, Hattiesburg leads the all-time series 24-18 but Picayune has won five out of the last seven games in the past 10 seasons.
Stogner and his Maroon Tide played the South State title game against West Jones last year without senior stalwart running back Chris Davis who is at Stanford now as well as most of the game without this season’s top ball carrier Darrell Smith.
“We were without two of our guns last year and might have been a little over confident,” Stogner continued. “I know I was guilty of it. But like the guys, I had to learn myself. This year I think our confidence level is just right. Confident but not too, too confident.”

Last week, Picayune advanced to its fourth straight South State title tilt with a 63-40 thumping of visiting George County.
At the same time, after waiting a full year for another crack at Pascagoula in the Class 6A football playoffs, Hattiesburg didn’t let it go to waste avenging last year’s 7-6 first-round defeat to the Panthers with an authoritative 33-17 victory Friday night at D.I. Patrick Stadium.
“What an opportunity. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Tiger veteran head coach Tony Vance said of the trip to Picayune. ” Yes, we’d much rather have them here, but we’re in South State. You can play it in the middle of a ditch, and it would still mean the same thing.”

The winner of this game faces the winner of the Class 6A North State championship game as Warren Central hosts Grenada Friday night. Grenada is an impressive 12-1 overall, while Warren Central sits at 9-3. The winner will face the winner of the Picayune-Hattiesburg match-up next week on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., at M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi for the Class 6A state championship.