No. 11 Gulf Coast wins for Levi in the final 2 seconds

WESSON — No. 11 Mississippi Gulf Coast thought it had all the emotions wrenched out of it over the last week, but there was still more ahead of them with 1:50 left to play against Copiah-Lincoln.

The Bulldogs marched 76 yards in 11 plays, scoring on a 10-yard pass by Philip Short to Rico Dorsey with 2 seconds left to pull out a 14-13 win at H.L. Stone Stadium.

"Coach Wright talked about overcoming adversity all week," Dorsey said. "We knew we were going to come out here and play four quarters no matter what the scoreboard said."

The Bulldogs played in the aftermath of losing teammate Levi Madison, who died in a car wreck not long after the team had returned from a loss at Hinds last week. There was a team-only memorial service on campus Sunday night, and Madison's visitation and funeral will take place Friday and Saturday in Meridian.

Gulf Coast (4-1, 2-1 MACCC South) got another tremendous effort from the Regulators on defense, and the offense rebounded from being shut out in the first half. Co-Lin (2-3, 2-1) led 13-0 at the break, having stymied the Bulldogs offense.

"I'm going to be honest with you. I felt like we could win the game. We had not played well. WE had only played 27 snaps on offense, and when you don't get a large number of snaps you don't really know where to start."

It started quickly with a three-play drive right after the kickoff. Short (So., Flowood/Madison-Ridgeland Academy) hit Jalen Bracey (So., Jackson/Murrah) for a 60-yard bomb that made it 13-7 after a point-after by Dylan Wasson (Fr., Madison/Germantown).

Bracey caught six passes for 89 yards.

Gulf Coast forced a Co-Lin punt, and it looked like the Bulldogs were going to march right down the field and take the lead. Starting at their own 19-yard line, they drove all the way to the half-foot line on Short's diving third-down rollout to the sideline. The Wolves stopped the fourth-down play, and the defense took back over.

Gulf Coast got only one first down on its next three drives. The Regulators, however, continued to force punts.

"They did a fantastic job," Wright said. "I'm proud to be their coach. The energy and the effort tonight was unmatched. I'm just so proud of them. At any time, they could have laid down and take a play off on the backside. They never did."

The final one came after Co-Lin had given the Bulldogs two free clock-stoppages by committing a holding penalty that was declined and running a third-and-13 play out of bounds.

"We didn't want to overreact," Gulf Coast linebacker Mike Smith said. "We had to stay poised and remember what the coaches tell us to do. Just try not to do too much, just do your job. If you do that, everybody will take of theirs and we'll be good."

The ultimate drive had one big hitch in it, though. After two first downs, Short got sacked to force a second-and-21.

"I just knew they were playing very, very, very soft zone," he said. "We recruit the very best athletes in the state of Mississippi, so I knew if I could get the ball in their hands, they would do the rest. We just wanted to set it up to get to third-and-7 or -8 and knock off some of the yards."

He dumped a pass off to Micah McGowan (So., Petal/Petal), who evaded tackles to pick up all but 5 yards. Jonathan Harris (Fr., Hattiesburg/Petal) caught another pass and got out of bounds 9 yards down field to keep the drive alive.

After an 11-yard completion to Dorsey, Co-Lin interfered with K.T. Hicks (So., Petal/Petal) coming across the middle. That gave Gulf Coast first down at the 10.

Short said the Bulldogs had been working on the winning route all week in practice. The play was drawn up for Bracey.

"He was the primary read on that play, but we just tagged a little route behind him in case they overplayed Bracey, which they did," Wright said. "Me and Philip talked about it right before the play, and they played it just like we thought they might and Rico just snuck in right behind Bracey."

Short completed 24-of-35 passes for 236 yards. Dorsey finished with nine catches for 74 yards.

"Coach Wright gave us the call, broke it down, and we executed," Dorsey said. "They did exactly what he said they would do."

Gulf Coast, which has played four of its first games on the road, returns to A.L. May Memorial Stadium next week. East Central visits for a 7 p.m. kickoff in Perkinston.

The team spent a lot of time during the week talking and thinking about Madison. The jovial freshman tried to make everybody he met smile — at least off the field.

"Levi was a very competitive guy," Short said. "We knew he would want us to come out here and give it all we've got. Being down 13-0 and to score 14 unanswered points, that was just magical. I can't say anything but, Thank God."

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