Make it 6 straight for No. 17 MGCCC

No. 17 Mississippi Gulf Coast ran its winning streak to six Friday night in Decatur, blanking East Central 2-0. Gulf Coast leads No. 5 Jones by two points in the race for the MACCC title.

Kade Smith (Fr., London, England/Whitmore) scored two more times for the Bulldogs.

"I thought we played well," Gulf Coast coach Chris Handy said. "The league's getting tighter, so at this point it's just about winning games. We came out and it was a professional performance. We didn't score as many goals as we normally do, but we gave up nothing defensively. We got our three points."

The Bulldogs (7-1-2, 5-0 MACCC) are the only unbeaten, untied team in the MACCC. They are 7-0-1 in their last eight games. It was the third straight shutout for David Ruiz Ospina (Fr., Manizales, Colombia/Gimnasio del Pacifico) and his defense, who haven't been scored on in 273 minutes.

They did have a streak broken, however. The Bulldogs had scored exactly four goals in the previous five matches. They've outscored their opponents 22-3 in the six-game win streak.

East Central is now 2-6-1, 2-3.

Smith scored in the 19^th and 55^th minutes, with Mills Sheridan (Fr., Brandon/Northwest Rankin) picking up an assist on the second. He's now tied for the team lead in goals with Victor Moerck (Fr., Vaerloese, Denmark/Lyngby Handelsgymnasium).

"Our team is dangerous because we have so many threats.," Handy said. "Sometimes it's Victor, and sometimes it's Kade. In general, the team looked really clicked on defensively and they took a step forward."

Gulf Coast returns home Tuesday to start a four-game homestand. Holmes visits Bary Thrash Field, with the men playing first at 5 p.m.

The Bulldogs will play East Mississippi, No. 5 Jones and Itawamba in the final regular-season matches at Perk.

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