By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PICAYUNE — In 24 previous meetings that span the past 77 years, Ocean Springs had never scored as many as 40 points against Picayune on the football field.
Friday night, however, the visiting Greyhounds had that covered in the first half alone.
Visiting Ocean Springs scored at will in the first two quarters en route to a 56-42 win over perennial state power Picayune here at Lee-Triplett Stadium in a big showdown between a pair of teams that came into the contest unbeaten.
The Greyhounds move to 4-0 and the Maroon Tide fall to 3-1 with the decision.

“That was a heck of a ball game,” OSHS third-year head coach Jake Bramlett said. “Picayune is a tough football team. Our offensive line showed out tonight. All those guys played as well as I’ve ever seen a unit. Defense and special teams played great. As much as you can look at the points given up they did what they had to do to execute the game plan and our offensive skill guys answered the call and showed out tonight. Very proud of players and coaching staff.”
Ocean Springs took a 42-28 lead at halftime, and then the Greyhounds turned Picayune away on the Maroon Tide’s first drive of the third frame when Greyhound defender Keagan Lymon fell on a fumble at his own 1-yard line.
Any thoughts Picayune had of a valiant second half comeback were quickly dashed when Ocean Springs quarterback Chalmers Berglind found wide out Sharroid Whitehead on a 99-yard toss and run for a touchdown to stretch the lead to 49-28.
“He (Whitehead) told me he was gonna make an impact play, and he sure picked the right time to do it,” Bramlett added. “”Our offense played really well all night. And our offensive line was the difference.”

After Picayune cut into the deficit to 49-35 with a 26-yard scoring scamper by Xavier Dennis with around four minutes to play in the third period, OSHS bounced right back to seal the win. Ian Harlan returned a short Picayune punt to the Maroon Tide 26 early in the final frame, and then Greyhound running back Solomon Baggett ripped off a 24-yard run to the Picayune 2-yard line on the first play of the new drive.
Baggett then covered that distance on the next play, and the eighth point-after kick of the night by OSHS place-kicker Peyton Williams made it 56-35.
“This was a heavyweight fight, but this game is not gonna define us,” Picayune head coach Cody Stogner said. “We’ll learn from it. There’s a lot of things we have to work on. We shot ourselves in the foot at times, and that hurt. But that is a very good football team, make no mistake about it. Give Ocean Springs all the credit in the world. We just have to get better at blocking and tackling.”
The two teams combined from 70 points in the first half as OSHS took that 14-point halftime lead.

The Greyhounds got a pair of scoring passes out of the Berglind brothers, as quarterback Chalmers hit big brother Hayden from 53-yards out and from 17-yards away. Also, Harlan hauled in an 11-yard touchdown toss from Chalmers, and Baggett scored on a 3-yard dash.
Ocean Springs running back Lanny Waltman added a pair of rushing scores, from 8-yards out and from 2-yards away.
Picayune got two touchdown runs from Dennis, from 24-yards out and from 7-yards away, as well as a 20-yard scoring run from Jabari Hathorne and a 75-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from Addarius Fortenberry.
After OSHS took that 56-35 lead early in the fourth quarter, Picayune quarterback colt Robertson completed the scoring with a 13-yard touchdown toss to fullback Cayne McKinley.

The younger Berglind, just a sophomore, enjoyed a stellar outing as he completed 10-of-14 passes for 321 yards and the four scores and he was at the control of an OSHS team that accounted for over 500 yards of total offense.

Dennis ran 22 times for Picayune for 169 yards and the three scores.