STARKVILLE — Win and you’re the champion.
It’s a simple formula for the Starkville High School football team as its prepares for its game at 7 tonight against Neshoba Central that will decide the Class 5A, Region 2 title.
Starkville (8-2, 6-0 region) will need to win in Philadelphia to secure its first region championship in 10 years. That’s why Starkville coach Jamie Mitchell doesn’t want to see a sparse crowd and would love to see a caravan of headlights making the 60-mile trip south.
“I don’t think our community has fully grasped where we are and our school,” Mitchell said. “This is a big event and we’re wanting to take a huge crowd with us (tonight). We hope the folks will load up, go to Philadelphia (tonight), and get behind these guys.”
If Starkville wins tonight, it will end the regular season as the only undefeated team in the region play. If Starkville loses, it will become a numbers game for Neshoba Central and Ridgeland. The Mississippi High School Activities Association rulebook determines a three-way tiebreaker be settled by point differential of the tied schools involved. Therefore, the two ways Neshoba Central (7-3, 5-1) can win the region title tonight is by beating Starkville and a Ridgeland loss to Provine, or if it beats Starkville by more than nine points.
If Starkville loses by double digits or if Ridgeland loses, the Yellow Jackets will play host to a first-round playoff game for the first time since 2003.
“If we beat Starkville by 10 points, we’ll have the No. 1 seed,” Neshoba Central coach Chuck Friend said to the Neshoba Democrat.
As coach at Starkville from 1994-2000, Friend helped the program win state championships in 1994 and 1995.
“He’s been doing it a long time and has been extremely successful,” Mitchell said. “He’s got two state championships here and is probably the owner of a third because the team he left was a tremendous football team.”
Friend left Starkville for Neshoba Central in 2000.
Slowly and without much fanfare, Starkville junior quarterback Gabe Myles is becoming one of the most dangerous players in Class 5A. Myles had 333 total yards (280 passing, 53 rushing) last week in a 35-21 victory against Callaway to give him 1,948 yards and 15 touchdowns for the season.
The new element to the Starkville aerial attack may be sophomore wide receiver Princeton Jones. The 6-foot-1 target had four catches for 76 yards last week.
The Starkville defense will have to control the backfield duo of quarterback Josh Stewart and tailback O’Neal McCarty, who have combined for 1,829 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns.
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