By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

POPLARVILLE — The Moss Point girls had their four game win streak snapped two days after Christmas.

But the Lady Tigers bounced back in a big way Monday night on the road in Poplarville.

Moss Point pounded the home-standing Lady Hornets 41-17 in Region 8-4A action in its final game of the 2024 portion of its schedule. But perhaps more importantly than rebounding from that loss on Friday, the Lady Tigers of veteran head coach Ethan Porter stayed unbeaten in the region race at 2-0 and now sit a solid 10-7 overall.

“It feels good to start out 2-0 in region play,” Porter, in his seventh season at the helm of the Lady Tigers, said. “This is the first time we’ve won our first two division games in a few years now. We have juniors and seniors that were playing major minutes as freshmen and sophomores, so we feel like we have a veteran group. This is a tough league though, and we can’t overlook anyone. Being 2-0 is great, but nothing matters until you get in the district tournament.

Moss Point has also won six out of its past eight games over the past few weeks and it heads into 2025.

Against Poplarville on Monday night, Jordyn Ford scored 12 points to pace Moss Point and Kirsten Bailey chipped in 10 points to the winning cause. Landyn Johnson also added eight points for MPHS in the win.

The Lady Hornets dropped to 0-2 in Region 8-4A play with the loss, and are 5-11 overall.

Poplarville was coming off a second place finish in the annual Pearl River Central Christmas Tournament over the weekend as they beat Stone 43-25 in the first round before falling to Pearl River, La., 37-29 in the title tilt.

The Lady Tigers, meanwhile, went into their brief break for Christmas on a four game win streak, which marked the first time in three years that MPHS had won fur straight games in a season.

Porter’s troops headed to Philadelphia, Miss., late last week to participate in what was expected to be a two day event at the annual Neshoba Central Christmas Tournament.

The Lady Tigers fell to Newton County 42-29 on Friday afternoon to tip off the tourney action.

Ford tallied 16 points in that loss, while Bailey added five rebounds and five assists.

The Lady Tigers looked to get back on track the next day against Leake County, but play in the event was canceled due to the threat of inclement weather.

So, although it took two more days to do so, Porter hopes getting back on track is exactly what MPHS did on Monday night as they head into a Saturday home match-up with Class 7A foe St. Martin.