By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

STARKVILLE — Gulfport won its first state football championship in program history Saturday night.

The Admirals scored on the last play of the game to pull out a stunning 21-20 win over defending state champ Tupelo in the Class 7A state title match-up here at Davis-Wade Stadium on the campus of Mississippi State University.

Admiral quarterback Parker Nettles hit wide out Mylan Stubbs on a 34-yard “Hail Mary” scoring strike as the final horn sounded to tie the game up at 20-20.

Gulfport placekicker Carter Platt, who missed a 28-yard field goal earlier in the fourth period, then calmly split the uprights on the extra point try to secure the historic decision.

The chaotic and climactic ending came just over a minute after the Golden Wave took their first lead of the game on a 4-yard scoring run by J.J. Hill to make it 20-14. But THS placekicker Hopson Daughdrill missed the extra point.

Nettles then led the Admirals on a seven play, 80-yard scoring march to end the game, completing six straight passes at one point in the process.

The two teams went into halftime with Gulfport up 14-7 , thanks to two touchdown runs by senior standout running back Cooper Crosby.

Crosby’s first scoring scamper came on the opening possession of the game, when he took it 20-yards to the house to put GHS up 7-0 four minutes and one second in.

Then, on the first play of the second stanza, he sprinted 54-yards straight up the middle for his second score of the game. That play was set up when the Admirals fell on a Golden Wave fumble at their own 44-yard line on the last play of the opening period.

Sandwiched in between Crosby’s two scoring runs was a 15-yard touchdown dash by Hill on the ensuing THS possession after Gulfport’s first scoring drive.

Tupelo running back Kylan Bobo knotted things up again with an 11-yard touchdown jaunt at the 4:29 mark of the third frame.

Gulfport placekicker Carter Platt missed a 28-yard field goal just over a minute into the fourth period.

But he redeemed himself on the biggest kick in Gulfport program history on the last play of the game.