By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PASCAGOULA — Pascagoula is hosting the 16th annual “Panther Classic” on Saturday afternoon.

But this year marks the first time the Panthers will see action in the annual affair after a 17-day layoff.

Pascagoula ends that 17 day holiday break with a home game against D’Iberville Friday night before the Panthers face visiting West Jones Saturday night in the final contest of the eight game 2025 “Panther Classic” presented by Raisin Cane’s.

“I’ve never had this long of a break during a season,” PHS head coach Lorenzo Wright, who is in his 12th year overall as a head hoops coach in South Mississippi and his ninth at the helm of the Panthers. “It may help us in the end though. I think we’ll have fresh legs down the stretch of the season.

Pascagoula sits at 12-1 on the season and is coming off a 71-52 win at home over D’Iberville on Tuesday, Dec. 17th.

“We took a week off,” Wright continued. “Then we got in the gym and worked on some skill development. We also worked on conditioning.”

The Warriors, meanwhile, come in to Friday’s match-up at 10-4 overall and first-year head coach Eric Vianney’s squad has also been in a bit of a lull action-wise as well having played just two games in the 23 days.

D’Iberville will also come back to Pascagoula on Saturday to participate in the annual “Panther Classic”. As will their female counterparts and the Pascagoula girls.

Wright added that despite he and his team coming off a long layoff for the first time ever, he wasn’t pdoing anything different as game day approaches for the Panthers for the first time in almost three weeks.

“We are just working on us and trying to get better defensively,” he concluded.

Eight games are on tap Saturday beginning at 10 a.m., and features six boys’ games and a pair of girls’ contests.
Both the host PHS boys and their female counterparts will take part, as well as six other “Southern Six” squads and along with seven other teams from across the state of Mississippi and one team from Mobile, Ala.
“I’m extremely excited about the matchups this year,’ Panthers head coach Lorenzo Wright said on Monday. “There was an attempt to create a coast vs us match-ups and I think we did that really well. We also wanted to give basketball fans a playoff preview in some matchups as well.”