No. 6 Bulldogs see season end in Scooba

SCOOBA — No. 6 Mississippi Gulf Coast couldn't find a toehold in the first half of the MACCC semifinal here Saturday, and No. 8 East Mississippi made the Bulldogs pay.

They trailed by 23 at the break, and a rally in the second half fell well short in a season-ending 33-21 loss.

"They were the better team today," Gulf Coast coach Jack Wright said. "We didn't play fast in the first half and dug ourselves a big hole. I just felt like we were playing slow, which is 100 percent on me. We should have had our team a little more ready to play. I felt like we had a good week of preparation and trip up was good, but it's tough to put our finger on exactly why we were a tad slow in the first half."

The Bulldogs will end the season 8-2. The Lions (8-2) will host Copiah-Lincoln for the MACCC championship next weekend.

EMCC scored touchdowns on three of its first four possessions, and the Bulldogs managed only four first downs in the first half. They trailed 23-0 at halftime.

"I thought we fought back in the second half," Wright said. "We played more like us in the second half, but we didn't have a lot of opportunities offensively in the first half to get things going. That hurt us, but you have to give them credit for limiting us."

Gulf Coast took the second-half kickoff and marched down the field on a 13-play, 68-yard drive punctuated by the first touchdown of the year by Jackson Kostmayer (So., Biloxi/St. Patrick).

The Regulators' Dramarian McNulty (So., Brookhaven/Brookhaven) got an interception in the end zone on the next EMCC possession, but the Bulldogs wouldn't be able to score again until the first drive of the fourth quarter. Jalen Davis (So., Houston, Texas/Katy) scored from 2 yards to make it 30-14.

Ramone Bradley (So., Fairhope, Ala./Fairhope) caught a 4-yard touchdown with 4 seconds left for the final score.

The Bulldogs turned the ball over three times.

JP Coulter (Fr., Ocean Springs/Ocean Springs) had eight catches for 95 yards to lead the Bulldogs. Gulf Coast's running game was bottled up most of the night, with Davis' 17-yard run the longest of the game. Gulf Coast averaged 3.8 yards per attempt.

Gulf Coast won a share of the MACCC South title for the school-record fifth straight year.

"I'm so proud of them," Wright said. "I'm around these guys every day. They're a bunch of great guys. These guys are going to do some really good things outside of football. We're going to be really proud of them when we look up four or five years from now. Love 'em to death. They fought their tails off today, and I just hate we couldn't have them ready as a coaching staff today."

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