PHOTO BY KIRSTIE GOODMAN
No. 11 Mississippi Gulf Coast and No. 15 Pearl River played in last year’s NJCAA Gulf District championship game, and the rematch Saturday night in Poplarville finished the same way at the end of regulation.
The teams tied 2-2, with fans getting to enjoy three spectacular goals.
“We picked it up more in the second half,” Gulf Coast coach Chris Handy said. “The team is still growing, and I think they responded well in the second half. We had more control of the game, which I can appreciate. There’s still improvements we need to make.”
The Bulldogs are starting the 2024 season with three straight games against nationally ranked teams, and they’re 1-0-1 after a grueling three-day span against the other top two teams in the MACCC. They beat No. 16 Jones with a late goal Thursday in Perkinston, and they’ll play No. 9 Heartland in a neutral-site game in Senatobia next week.
Jasintho Wielders (Fr., Krimpen aan den Ijssel, Netherlands/Zadkine College) blasted a volley off a corner with five minutes to play in the first half for the opening goal. After PRCC equalized eight minutes into the second half, Nygel Jobe (So., Brandon/Brandon) played a ball through on the left to Vincenzo Jeanfreau (Fr., Saucier/Pass Christian). He curled a right-footed shot from a sharp angle brilliantly into the far-side netting for a 2-1 lead with 19 minutes left.
“Our incoming class is really showing their worth right now,” Handy said. “I think it’s been all incoming players scoring for us so for, which is big. We need to get our returners back up to speed, then we may have something. It’s a dangerous team when we try to be. In the second half, we started to show a little more fight.”
The Wildcats, playing their first game of the season, equalized about a minute later for the final score.
David Ruiz Ospina (So., Manizales, Colombia/Gimnasio del Pacifico) made five saves on the night, the last perhaps the most brilliant. He sprawled to stop a point-blank shot in the final minutes. Mills Sheridan (So., Flowood/Northwest Rankin) got the last shot of the game off just before the final whistle, and it rolled inches wide.
Gulf Coast will play Heartland at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Senatobia. They’ll head there sporting that 1-0-1 record.
“Happy would be a stretch,” Handy said. “We’ll take it against two of the best teams in our league. No other team outside these three has won the league since 2016, so to have those two within three days is a big challenge. We’ll take it, but I definitely thought we had the opportunity to start the season off strong. There’s room for growth there.”
For more information on MGCCC’s 12 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.
This post originally posted at https://www.mgcccbulldogs.com/landing/index by MGCCC Athletics
