By Stan Caldwell/Sports Writer

POPLARVILLE — Poplarville wanted to leave nothing to chance in the Class 4A playoffs.

The Hornets made sure they would be the top dogs in Region 7-4A as they got past Columbia 45-28 Friday night in the regular-season finale in front of a packed house at The Hornet’s Nest.

The victory clinched the region championship for undefeated Poplarville (9-0 overall, 4-0 region), and ensured the Hornets will be home for at least the first three rounds of the postseason, beginning next week against Northeast Lauderdale.

Columbia, the defending 4A state champions, dropped to 6-4 and 2-2, and will be the 3-seed in the region. The Wildcats open the playoffs next week at Newton County.

“This was the first goal we set out to achieve, a district championship,” said Poplarville head coach Jay Beech. “This is the toughest region, we believe, in 4A football, so whoever wins this league has a real good football team.

“Hats off to Columbia. They’re a great team, and they gave us all we wanted. But fortunately, we came out on top.”

As they have the past three seasons, the Hornets rode the running of senior Ty Keys, who ran 23 times for 268 yards and four touchdowns.

“I’m blessed with this team, especially my offensive line,” said Keys. “They make it easy for me. I thank my teammates, my coaches and especially the fans. They make it exciting to play here.”

It didn’t come easy, however. Poplarville rode a nearly-perfect first half to a 35-8 halftime lead, but had to sweat in the second half as the Wildcats roared back with three unanswered touchdowns.

Junior quarterback Trac Smith engineered a clutch drive in the fourth quarter, doing much of the damage himself to help the Hornets hold on for the win.

“I just wanted to win,” said Smith. “That team over there beat all three of my brothers, sent them home, and ended their football careers. So I wanted to do whatever it took to win for my brothers and my brothers on this team.”

This one started off like a house on fire, as both teams easily blew through the opposing defenses on their opening drives of the game.

Poplarville needed just three chunk plays, covering just 1:07 off the clock after the opening kickoff to get on the scoreboard.

Keys carried for 12 yards, Smith passed for 38 yards to senior tight end Chadwick Brown and senior Remy Naquin burst off left tackle untouched for the score from 25 yards out.

That lead didn’t last long. Columbia answered with a six-play, 62-yard drive, with senior Junior Curney scoring from 1 yard out. The key play was a 22-yard pass from junior Jonathan Lowery to senior Christian Expose to the Poplarville 6-yard line.

The Wildcats initially lined up to kick the PAT, but an encroachment call against the Hornets moved the ball inside the 2-yard line, and they chose instead to run a play, with sophomore Brice Mingo getting in to give Columbia an 8-7 lead.

That lead lasted all of 19 seconds, as Keys erased a mistake on the kickoff return, when the ball was downed at the 9-yard line.

Keys took the direct snap, followed excellent blocking off right guard and blasted through the remainder of the Wildcat defense for a 91-yard touchdown run. The Hornets never trailed the rest of the game.

“I just made up my mind that I was going to do something big there,” said Keys. “My o-line, man. I didn’t have to do anything. It was wide-open for me, and I just got in there and got out. I’m built for this, I work for this off the field, on the field, I’m always ready.”

Columbia picked up right where it left off, moving from its own 21 to a first down at the Hornet 19 following a 12-yard keeper by Lowery.

But on third-and-4, the Wildcats lost the ball on a fumble, with junior J.T. Graham recovering for Poplarville. It was the first of three critical turnovers by Columbia.

“That was a big play, and our job was to build off that,” said Graham. “The momentum kept going up, and we just took control of the first half.”

Taking over at their own 5-yard like, sophomore Kaden Bradford got the Hornets out of their end of the field with a 34-dash around right end to the Hornet 47, and Keys capped the eight-play drive with a 19-yard run around right end.

The PAT kick was wide left, but the Hornets increased their lead to 20-8.

Poplarville’s defense once again came up with the big play on Columbia’s ensuing possession, as senior linebacker Lennox Beech stepped in front of a third-down pass and returned the theft to the Wildcat 30.

A holding penalty moved the Hornets back, but on the second-down play, Keys showed off his moves by pivoting out of a stop off right guard and darted around the right side for a 37-yard scoring run.

After a Wildcat punt, Poplarville went right back to work, marching 61 yards on just five plays to score again.

Bradford ran for 11 yards, then Naquin went for 26 yards to the Wildcat 24, and on third down – the first one Poplarville had faced up to that point in the game – Keys burst up the middle for a 19-yard touchdown.

Keys finished the first half with 207 yards on just 10 carries, and surpassed the state career record for rushing touchdowns, with 101 and counting.

“He’s a great player who can go to the house any time,” said Beech. “We’re going to give it to him as much as we need to, and see what he can do with it.

“He’s not our only weapon. We have a lot of guys who are really good runners. We can fake it to Ty with our quarterback, we’ve got two good wingbacks, and our offensive line has done a nice job too.”

As the teams went to the locker room for halftime, it looked like a rout was in the making. But Columbia isn’t defending state champs for nothing, and the Wildcats came out for the second half with renewed vigor.

“We were beating ourselves,” said Columbia coach Chip Bilderback. “We knew they were a team that was so capable of doing that. They have great players, they’re well-coached and they have a really good scheme.

“It was important for us to just keep fighting. It’s something we talk about all the time, to just keep pushing, keep fighting. I’m proud of our effort, but we didn’t have a lot of breaks go our way.”

Expose gave Columbia good field position, returning the opening kickoff of the second half 34 yards to the 44-yard-line, and the Wildcats needed just four plays to score.

Sophomore Kaven Bridges got the drive going with a 20-yard run, then Curney ran for 28 to the Poplarville 8, and it was Curney who got the Wildcats to the doorstep of the end zone, losing a fumble at the 1-yard line, but senior lineman Greg Laird jumped on the loose ball for the score.

For the game, Columbia rushed for 309 yards, led by Bridges, who had 100 yards on 11 carries. Lowery added 95 yards on 15 runs, and Curney finished with 79 yards on 10 rushes.

After forcing Poplarville’s only punt of the game, the Wildcats drove 92 yards on nine plays, as Bridges had runs of 24 and 22 yards to get the drive going. Lowery got the touchdown on a 4-yard run around left end.

And Columbia wasn’t finished. On the second play of the ensuing possession, senior Bryson Foxworth picked off a pass on the first snap of the fourth quarter, and Lowery made it a one-score game with a 20-yard scamper around right end.

But that was when Smith more than atoned for the mistake with the drive of the game, a 10-play, 58-yard march that consumed more than five minutes off the clock.

Smith ran five times for 39 yards on the drive, converting a key fourth-down with a 3-yard dive over the middle to the Columbia 34, followed that with a 12-yard , then got the touchdown on another 12-yard burst up the middle.

“We’re very blessed with a lot of options on this team,” Smith said. “It’s a really good feeling when you have a bunch of really good players and an o-line that plays really hard. They’re tough, and they’re going to get up on you.”

On the ensuing kickoff, the Hornets jarred the ball loose, and junior Xavier Martin recovered for Poplarville at the Wildcat 24.

The Hornets used up 4:15 off the clock, settling for a 27-yard field goal by senior Jaxon Schultz to ice the game with 56.5 seconds left.

Smith added 83 yards on the ground on 13 carries and Bradford had 58 yards on six rushes, as Poplarville amassed 462 rushing yards, and 511 yards total. Columbia totaled 427 yards of offense, but the three turnovers proved to be the Wildcats’ downfall.

“They’re a well-coached team, and they have the athletes that can do it,” said Graham. “We had a dogfight, and we just had better athletes tonight.

“It’s a different team, different mentality than last year. We’re more focused on the bigger goals, taking it step-by-step, but we’re definitely aiming for state.”

Northeast Lauderdale will bring a paltry 1-9 record into next week’s opening round as the 4-seed out of Region 5-4A, but Beech doesn’t believe his team will be looking past the Trojans.

“We know it’s a one-game season starting next week,” said Beech. “These guys have played a lot of playoff games, so I think they know how to handle it.