A program that was once experiencing a 49-year title drought is now in contention to winning back-to-back state championships.
Hattiesburg took down Terry 66-56 on Tuesday night to improve to an impressive 18-1 overall record and a 4-0 mark in region play.
Had you asked Hattiesburg coach Ernie Watson if he felt his team was capable of repeating for a championship, his answer might surprise the average fan.
“No,” Watson said. “Because of our size.
“We take it one day at a time. We don’t talk about (a repeat).”
There is definitely credence to that thought. Going off the basic eye test, Terry had a noticeable size advantage. To Watson’s pleasant surprise, that hasn’t mattered.
“We have been playing (against) size all year,” Watson said. “Everybody has been bigger than us. They are just fighting and grinding on the things that we have to do to make sure that we are successful.
“It’s been an amazing run. These young men have really bought into the championship spirit and the championship attitude. They have just taken off with it.”
Hattiesburg’s Stephen McCullon, who was named the MVP of last year’s state title game, is a perfect example of the championship attitude.
Although he was the MVP, McCullon was the third leading scorer on the squad. He has since gone from averaging 8.2 points per game to 17.6.
“I really just worked hard in the offseason,” McCullon said. “I knew that we weren’t going to have the same team that we had from last year. I just made it my point of emphasis to lead my team and keep building off the success we had last year.”
The senior also admits he knew his team would be good but didn’t foresee the dominant start.
“I didn’t exactly see how it would come along, but I did think that we were going to be a good team,” McCullon said. “All of our players work. We have experience too. It’s not like we have a brand-new team.
“Because of our experience in the big games that we went through last year, we just don’t fold under pressure. We rise up to the challenge.”
The size mismatch was not apparent at the start of the game as Hattiesburg jumped out to an 8-2 lead. Terry answered by tying the game at 13-13, but the Tigers responded and jumped ahead with an 18-13 lead by the end of the quarter. Hattiesburg’s James Griffin hitting a three-pointer as time expired.
In the second quarter, Hattiesburg pulled ahead with a 24-15 lead. Again, Terry answered by narrowing the score to 25-23. A three-pointer and a pair of free throws gave the Tigers some cushion before the Bulldogs hit a shot from beyond the arc as time expired to end the half with Hattiesburg holding a 30-27 lead.
“They are a good team,” Watson said. “A good team is going to come back. A good team is going to make shots. They do what they do, and that’s what they do. We are going to have to ride that rollercoaster.”
The Tigers then unleashed a scoring frenzy in the third quarter as they racked up 22 points, highlighted by a 20-4 run.
According to MuCullon, the key to dealing with size mismatches has been aggressive defense.
“Playing aggressive defense and keeping them off the board, especially the offensive rebounding,” McCullon said. “As you can see, (Terry) got a couple of them and came back in.”
Terry did indeed make it a game in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter despite the Tigers leading by as much as 14 points. However, the Bulldogs went on a 13-3 run to narrow the score to 63-57 before McCullon knocked down three free throws to seal the win.
“We were running our spread and got careless with the ball,” Watson said. “That’s something we can’t do. We don’t need to try and rush a score. We just have to take care of the ball.”
McCullon finished the game with 21 points, with 15 coming in the second half, while Logan Burns also scored 12 points.
“We just have to work hard and believe in ourselves and go win another gold ball,” McCullon said.
Hattiesburg travels to Pearl River Central on Friday, with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m.
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