By MAURICE SINGLETON/Sports Writer

GULFPORT — The Gulfport Admirals turned up their defensive pressure in the second quarter and forced six turnovers in the period to get St. Martin out of their early rhythm. The Admirals would go on to dominate the Yellow Jackets 60-35 in their Region 4 7A semifinal game on Tuesday.

With the win, the Admirals improved to 27-2 and advanced to the Region 4 7A finals on Friday night, meeting up with Biloxi for the third time this year. The Indians defeated Ocean Springs in the other semifinal game earlier on Tuesday.

The Yellow Jackets held the lead after one quarter of play (11-9), but the Admirals would go on a 17-7 run to close out the first half with nine of those points coming off Yellow Jackets’ turnovers.

“Our guys are very resilient,” said Admirals coach Brian Butler. “No matter what adversity, we’ve seen it all this year. We’ve won every type of game from blowouts to close games to overtimes. I think that experience has gone a long ways for our guys.

“We are confident,” said Butler of the way his team established their post play early and then went on to see success with their outside shooting. “We’ve been relying on our post players for a while, kind of getting down low and establishing dominance. Our post players got established early. Travor Frost did a good job of getting baskets down low, and it kind of opened it up.

“I’m old school,” said Butler. “This game is played inside out. Tonight, the outside guys came through for us.”

Frost pivoted his way for three baskets in the paint in the first quarter, and the outside game blossomed from there. The Admirals sank six three-pointers on the night, with Chance Gaines, Ladarius Johnson and Morris Robertson each sinking two three-pointers.

The Admirals stayed with the defensive ball pressure the rest of the way, holding the Yellow Jackets to 24 points over the last three quarters while they put up 51 points.

Robertson led the Admirals’ scoring with 14 points. Frost added 11 points, seven of those coming in the first quarter.

Jaxon Walker led the Yellow Jackets scoring with 12 points, including three 3-pointers in the first half.

The Gulfport Biloxi championship game tips off at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Gulfport has won both match-ups this season, including a 63-55 win at Biloxi last week.