By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PASCAGOULA — With a win over visiting Pearl River Central Friday night, Pascagoula can notch the 600th win on the football field in school history.
In addition, it will mark the 100th win for veteran PHS head coach Lewis Sims at the helm of the Panthers. No other PHS head football coach in history had won 100 games.
With that historic milestone inevitable at some point, we thought we’d take a look back at a couple of other highlights that were significant century mark moments (plus a few others) in PHS modern football era history…

500th win — In Scott Sisson’s final game as head coach at PHS before his friend Sims took over, the Panthers clipped visiting Harrison Central 24-13 on Oct. 29th, 2010 at War Memoial Stadium. Senquez Golson ran for a touchdown and caught a scoring pass from quarterback Stacey Warren, and Warren also tossed for another touchdown as PHS overcame an early 7-0 deficit to pull out the win. Cordaryl Weathersby had a pair of interceptions for PHS defensively.
400th Win — Under the direction of then head coach Bill Matthews, Pascagoula notched it’s 400th all-time win on the gridiron in 1990 with a 16-8 win over visiting Ocean Springs at War Memorial Stadium on Oct. 19th at War Memorial Stadium. The Greyhounds, under the direction of the legendary Hugh Pepper, fought hard but PHS remained unbeaten against its cross-county rival at 5-0 at that point. The Panthers used a safety and a 25-yard scoring run from fullback Rod Johnson to take a 9-0 halftime lead and hold on for the win.

378th Win — It’s been 38 years since PHS won a state football championship, nut the Panthers did just that on Dec. 4eth, 1987 at Robinson-Hale Stadium in Clinton on the campus of Mississippi College with a 27-0 shutout over Greenwood. Shane Matthews, widely regarded as the best quarterback in PHS history, led PHS offensively to a perfect 14-0 that year while Terrell Buckley paced PHS defensively.

314th Win — The only other state title for PHS in the modern era of prep football in the state of Mississippi came on Nov. 26th, 1976, when the Panther shut out visiting Greenville 21-0 for the overall Big 8 Conference state championship.

300th Win — The half-way mark to 600 came 50 years ago, on Sept., 12th on the road in an old and long-running Big * Conference rivalry over Laurel in exciting fashion “between the Bricks’ 14-13. Panther quarterback Clifton Porter scored on two short runs as the Golden Tornadoes focused mostly on PHS standout junior running back Ray Charles “Rooster” Jones all night. Panther place-kicker Bubba Toups was perfect on both important extra points.
250th Win — This milestone for PHS also came at home with a 62-19 thumping of Picayune on Oct. 21st, 1966.