By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HATTIESBURG — It won’t be a normal Monday morning after Thanksgiving for Gautier head football coach Marc High as the new school week starts.
And while it’ll be a lot more familiar one for Poplarville head coach Jay Beech, however, but he hopes the end of the week turns out much better than the prior four did.
The Gators and Hornets both qualified for the overall state championship round with wins in their respective South State championship games Friday, the Gators in Class 5A and the Hornets in Class 4A, with close and thrilling wins.

Gautier slipped past visiting Brookhaven 37-35 in the Class 5A South State title tilt while Poplarville went on the road and bumped off Forest 24-21 in the Class 4A South State championship contest.
“It’s just like a normal Sunday right now,” High told SouthMiss6 Sports. “We’re breaking down film and worried about the next opponent. I’m sure it will hit me and sink in more what we’ve done so far at the end of the season.”
Coaches, players and officials from all 14 teams that will play for state prep football championships this here will participate in a Zoom Press Conference on Monday morning produced by The Mississippi High School Activities Association.

For many years, up until the 202o season during the Covid Pandemic, the press conference was an in-person event that took place the Monday morning before the state championship games in Jackson at The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum.

“Here we are again, last man standing in Class 4A South,” Beech said Friday night.
This is Gautier’s, and High’s, first-ever trip to the state title tilt but it will be Poplarville’s fifth all under Beech in the past nine seasons.
But the Hornets are 0-4 all-time in the Class 4A state championship contest.

The Gators are up first of the two “Southern Six” squads in the title round, as the Gators face West Point at 7:30 p.m., in the Class 5A state championship game here at M.M. Roberts Stadium on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi.
It marks the first-ever meeting between the Gators and the perennial state power Green Wave on the gridiron. Gautier is 12-1 on the season, which ties the school record set back in 2000 for most wins in a season, while WPHS sits at 10-3 coming in.
West Point is no stranger to being in the state title tilt, as the Green Wave is the defending state Class 5A champ and they have won 12 state championships overall dating back to 1982.

Poplarville drives up North on I-59 about an hour the next day, on Saturday, as the Hornets face off with Louisville at 3:30 p.m., in the Class 4A North State title tilt. Poplarvile is 12-2 overall while Louisville is 13-1.
The Wildcats, the back-to-back and defending Class 4A state champions, are also no stranger to this round of the playoffs as they have also won 12 state championships dating back to 1984.
The outcomes of the South State contests mark the first time since 2019, when Pearl River County neighbors Picayune and Poplarville made it, that two teams from the “Southern Six” will battle for a gold ball in the same season. Both the Maroon Tide and Hornets came home empty handed that season.
Also, both the Gators and Hornets are in search of the first state football championship titles in program history for each school as each heads to “The Rock” here in this Hub City to do battle this week against the two teams that share the honor of having won more state titles in history than any other teams in the state.