Gulf Coast leads South after win at Hinds

Mississippi Gulf Coast jumped back into a first-place tie in the MACJC South Division and clinched a state tournament berth after defeating Hinds 84-80 in Utica.

The Bulldogs hold the tiebreaker over Jones and Pearl River with one game left in the regular season, but they could finish anywhere from first to fourth.

"I told them after the game if that's not incentive enough to get yourself ready to play, there's no reason to even talk about it," Gulf Coast coach Wendell Weathers said. "We've worked our tails off the last four or five months and we're one game away. If you can't motivate yourself to play that game, we probably don't deserve to be there."

Gulf Coast (18-4, 9-4 South) entered Monday in a three-way tie for second. The other four teams in the top five were playing it each other.

When the dust settled, there was a three-way tie for first. Jones, which was in first all alone headed into Monday, lost to Southwest, and Pearl River defeated East Central to join the pack at the top.

The Bulldogs used a typically balanced scoring attack to survive some sketch free-throw shooting. Deshawn Jones had 15 points to lead six Gulf Coast players in double digits, with Davion Cole-Johnson adding 13 points.

Maurice Stephens, Anfernee Hampton and Peyton Owen had 12 points, and Eliel Gonzalez chipped in 11.

"I didn't think we played really great, particularly on the offensive end, the whole night," Weathers said. "And then we missed a ton of free throws again tonight."

Gulf Coast made 24 of 42 free throws, just 57.1 percent.

The Bulldogs led Hinds (7-15, 4-9) by 18 at halftime, but saw the lead chipped down to four late but stretched it back out before a Hinds 3-pointer just before the final buzzer cut it to the final margin.

Gulf Coast hosts Copiah-Lincoln on Thursday in Perkinston on Sophomore Night. The Bulldogs can get more than revenge, having fallen 105-101 in overtime at Wesson earlier in the season.

"I hope they'll be motivated enough to go our and play the way we have to play," Weathers said. "The fact we're doing it at home, hopefully that will be a good thing."