By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director
OCEAN SPRINGS — In a bit of a scheduling quirk, Ocean Springs will host Gulfport for the second straight season in Region 4-7A play Friday night at Greyhound Stadium.
However, that’s far from the most peculiar note about this game.
The Oct. 3rd date marks the earliest prep football game ever between the Greyhounds and Admirals in the near 40-year history of the series.
Since the 1993 season, when the two teams first joined the same region, these two teams have always played the next-to-last week of the regular season. However, this year, the teams will meet in the second week of league play, and region-opener for Gulfport.

The all-time series actually started in 1987, when Gulfport beat visiting OSHS 34-13 in the opening round of the Class 5A South State playoffs.
Then, beginning in 1993, when both were joined together in Region 4-5A, the two teams met annually for the next 33 years in the second-to-last regular season playing date.
Until this year.
Apparently, when West Harrison moved up to Class 7A during the most recent bi-annual reclassification process by The Mississippi High School Activities Association, it made seven teams in Region 4-7A instead of six adding one more region game to go from five to six.
So, the teams redrew numbers for scheduling purposes and Gulfport and OSHS ended up with the second playing date. Even though for 16 years in Class 5A and for 15 more in Class 6A, when the region consisted of eight teams that played seven league games apiece, the two teams remained in that next-to-last playing date.
And continued to do so the past two seasons when the MHSAA expanded to seven classifications for the first time in state history.

Ocean Springs, which has not only won 25 straight region games but also four straight league titles, is also on a five game winning streak over the Admirals. Gulfport leads the all-time series 21-12, but OSHS is up slightly 6-5 over the past 11 games since 2014.
The last region title for the Admirals came in 2019. It marks the second longest stretch between league titles after an eight year span from 2004-2012 for GHS since the implementation of a state-wide playoff system in 1981.
Gulfport is 19-4 over the last four years in region play, with three of those losses coming to OSHS.
That region title six years ago was the last of three straight for the Admirals from 2017-2019, and D’Iberville bridged that gap winning the title in 2020. The Warriors also won the title in 2016 and 2013, with OSHS taking it in 2014.