By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director
OCEAN SPRINGS — For the third time in six years, Ocean Springs and perennial state power Petal will face one another in the South State playoffs.
The Greyhounds, the top seed in Region 4-7A, will have homefield advantage over the fourth seed from Region 3-7A, the Panthers. The three game series starts Friday night at Greyhound Park, and then will head to Petal Park for game two Saturday night. A third and final game, if needed, will be back in Ocean Springs on Monday. All games are set for 7 p.m.

Ocean Springs just wrapped up a solid 25-3 regular season, and went 17-1 in league play. The Greyhounds took two of three games from arch-rival St. Martin, the second seed from the loop, last week.
On Saturday, in an 8-2 Greyhound win in the regular season finale for both teams, OSHS bounced back from its first league loss of the year to score five quick first frame runs and jump out to a deciding 5-0 lead against visiting St. Martin.

Troy signee Justin San Miguel enjoyed a productive day at the plate that included a three-run triple in that first inning eruption. He then led off the the bottom of the third with a solo home run to make it 6-1. Victor Rojas smacked a solo home run to lead off the fourth to seal the deal at 7-1.
Tristan Fox picked up the pitching win for OSHS with five stanzas of work.
Lincoln Hust took the loss for the Yellow Jackets.
Cameron Romero had two hits for SMHS, including an RBI-double.

St. Martin, now 17-11 overall, faces Brandon in the opening round of the playoffs.
Petal, on the other hand, heads into the postseason at 17-12 overall after getting swept in league play by arch-rival Oak Grove last week. The Panthers have lost four straight games and five of their last six.
Ocean Springs and Petal split their two prior South State playoff match-ups, both of which went three games.
Two years ago, the Greyhounds recovered from a first game loss to topple the Panthers with two straight wins in the Class 7A South State semifinals.
In 2022, Petal took that same route in thew opening round of the Class 6A South State playoffs as after losing the first game they took down the Greyhounds with two straight wins.