No. 4 Bulldogs lose heartbreaker to Co-Lin

PERKINSTON — No. 4 Mississippi Gulf Coast took its first loss of the football season Thursday night at A.L. May Memorial Stadium, falling 28-23 in a typically wild game against Copiah-Lincoln.

The Bulldogs trailed 28-10 headed into the fourth quarter but staged a rally and had four shots inside the final two minutes with a chance to win the game.

 "Our kids are unreal," Gulf Coast coach Jack Wright said. "We never felt like there was any quit on the sidelines. There was nothing anybody was saying negative, it was just that we needed to keep playing and something's going to go our way. It kinda did at the end, but it just wasn't enough."

Gulf Coast falls to 5-1 overall, 2-1 in the MACCC South. They still control their conference playoff destiny, but their national playoff hopes took a blow.

Trey Hall (Fr., Vicksburg/Warren Central) sparked the Bulldogs into life with a 70-yard run four minutes into the final quarter to make it 28-17. It was his second long touchdown run of the night, and he finished with 213 yards on 20 carries. Gulf Coast averaged 8.6 yards per carry on the way to 283 yards.

"Trey Hall is a great player, a home-run hitter," Wright said. "He's explosive. He's getting better and better and better. It's not a surprise because we've seen it over and over in practice. We're going to need him going down the stretch."

Kevin Larkins (So., Fort Lauderdale, Fla./Fort Lauderdale) stepped in front of a Co-Lin pass on the next drive and returned it 65 yards for a score. Gulf Coast went for two and failed.

"We were down two scores and got the pick-6," Wright said. "We'd been needing that most of the game, and it came a little too late."

The Regulators forced a punt with 4:19 to play, and Dayan Bilbo (So., Vancleave/Vancleave) returned it 27 yards to the Co-Lin 39 to set up a golden opportunity.

Hall carried on four of the next five plays to get Gulf Coast down to the 13. He got stuff on first down, then two incompletions followed. Eli Anderson (So., Philadelphia/Neshoba Central), who finished 16-of-27 for 162 yards, got the wind knocked out of him on third down, and Kason Lincke (So., Mobile, Ala./Mobile Christian) had to come in cold off the bench for one play. His pass went incomplete with 1:14 left, and Co-Lin ran out the clock.

The Bulldogs outgained Co-Lin (5-1, 2-1) 294-154 in the first half but found themselves down 14-10. The Wolves got a strip-sack-fumble return for a touchdown to open the scoring.

The Bulldogs struck back quickly with a 57-yard run by Hall just over a minute later.

Gabriel Showalter (So., St. Martin/St. Martin) pushed Gulf Coast ahead with a 19-yard field goal midway through the second quarter, but it was a second drive that petered out in the red zone. One in the first quarter ended in a missed 44-yard field goal.

"I want to go back and watch the film and see exactly what happened," Wright said. "I felt like we could move the ball on them, and we did. We should have gotten more points from the offensive production, so we've got to go back and see what's happening for us not to score."

Co-Lin's Johnnie Daniels hit Gulf Coast for a long touchdown run on the second play of the next drive for the four-point halftime lead.

The Wolves got two touchdowns in the third quarter to push the lead to 28-10. One of them was a long drive to open the half, and the second came after a Bulldogs turnover.

The Bulldogs travel to Decatur next week to play East Central. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. 

"The one thing about our approach is every week is a new week," Wright said. "After the wins, we come back Sunday and approach the week with a fresh start, a fresh slate. We're going to do the same thing this Sunday. The kids know they're good. We've just got to play better." 

For more information on MGCCC's 11 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.