By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

OCEAN SPRINGS — Not much was expected by many observers from the St. Martin girls basketball team coming into this season.

After all, the Lady Yellow Jackets lost six seniors from last year’s Class 7A Final Four squad that all signed juco scholarships as well as their top returning player that was lost for the year after suffering a knee injury over the Summer.

However, no one bothered to tell St. Martin the bad news.

The Lady Yellow Jackets eclipsed the 20-win plateau for the second straight season with a pair of wins in less than 24 hours this weekend.

St. Martin completed a season sweep of arch-rival Ocean Springs with a 56-34 road win Friday night in Region 4-7A play and then stormed into Bert Jenkins Gym in Gulfport Saturday afternoon and thumped Holmes County Central 64-33 in the second annual “MLK Girls Grind”.

The pair of wins moves head coach Jason Kennedy’s crew to an impressive 20-3 overall with two weeks to play in the regular season.

“We talk about it all the time, it’s our culture.” Kennedy said. “We know we lost a lot of seniors and one of our best guards due to injury, but it’s next man up and this group has answered the bell.”

On Friday night, St. Martin got a pair of 3-pointers from Kylah Jenkins as well as another trey from Kiyara Lee all in the first quarter to jump out to a quick 15-5 lead entering the second stanza.

Kylah Jenkins added yet another triple in that period to lead a balanced Lady Yellow Jacket scoring effort that slowly stretched the St. Martin advantage out to 28-11 at halftime and OSHS never threatened in the second half.

Yvette Nathan tallied 14 points to lead the Lady Yellow Jackets with 12 of those points coming in the second half. Jenkins finished with 11 points, Kylenn Ward added 10 points and Lee had nine points in the winning effort.

Ocean Springs standout Starr Jackson poured in a game-high 24 points for the Greyhounds.

St. Martin moved to 5-2 in the region race and OSHS fell to 2-5.

On Saturday afternoon, St. Martin placed four players in double figures and just missed adding a fifth in the big win over HCCHS.

Nathan again led the way with 15 points, nine of them coming in the second half, while Ward and Kennedi Jenkins dropped in 13 points apiece and Emma Chester chipped in 10 points to the winning effort. Kylah Jenkins finished with eight points.

“The group before paved the way for us and this group has bought into our style of play and they play with so much effort,” Kennedy concluded. “I’m just blessed to have such great kids, and I’m so proud of them.”

Last year, St. Martin finished 23-7 and qualified to play in the overall Class 7A state semifinals at “The Big House” in Jackson.