Unbeaten and fourth ranked Picayune came to play Friday night.

And struggling Bay High paid the price.

The Tide handled the Bay High Tigers with a dominating run game and a swarming defense winning the Division 8-4A contest 51-0.

The win make Picayune 8-0 overall and 5-0 in league play, and sets up a big battle with Poplarville on Friday.

Bay High fell to 2-6 overall and 0-4 in the division.

 However, the victory came at a cost. Midway through the second quarter, senior quarterback Micah Hickman sustianed a knee injury. Hickman was taken to the locker room and later returned to the sidelines on crutches.

“I will be back, if not next week, for the playoffs. I don’t care what I have to do, brace it, whatever, I will play again this season” excalimed a very upbeat Hickman. 

With a heavy heart, Tide head coach Dodd Lee looked on fearing the worse. Just the week before against Long Beach, backup quarterback Micah’s brother Caleb Hickman was lost for the year with a knee injury.

  “He(Hickman) will have an MRI on Saturday,” Lee added. “As for the severity, we don’t know. We just want everyone to pray for him and his brother and for this team. They have gone through a lot this season.”

The Tide took the opening kick off and drove 63-yards behind an offensive line that gave senior tailback Albert Richards plenty of room to run. Richard scored on an end around allowing the Tide to take a 7-0 early first qurter lead.

The Tide defense kept the Tigers to a three and out and quickly the stampede was on.

On the Tide’s second posseion,  not wanting to loose the momentum, Lee replaced Richard with junior tailback Drew Cole. On the next play Cole took the ball outside and out ran the Tiger defense for a 36 yard run to paydirt for a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

 Again, the Tide defense was able to get the ball back in quick order. On this, the third offensive series, would see Hickman go down with the knee injury as he tried to fake a Tiger defensive back as he turned the corner on what looked to be a designed quarterback keeper. Hickman was not touched on the play, going down in pain. It looked as though when Hickman planted his left leg to make a move, his left knee gave out. 

Hickman was replaced by sophmore quarterback Jacob Riser. Riser would conduct business as usual for the Tide showing that coach Lee had all of his players ready to play. On the drive Hickman was injured, the Tide scored on a 2 yard run for Cole’s second score of the game for a 21-0 lead.

Again the defense held the Tigers to a three and out getting the ball back and allowing the Tide score yet again, on a 7yard end around where sophmore tailback Reginald Bailey would put the Tide up 20-0 at the extra point.

The Tigers were harrassed all night by the Tide defense which seemed know what was coming next. It was as dominating a defense as you could asked after a very emotional game the previous Firday night.

To begin the second half, Picayune’s Steven Kellar blocked a punt into the endzone that was recovered by Tide defensemen Glen Agnelly for a 35-0 lead with just two minutes gone off the clock in the third quarter.

There was not much the Tigers could do on this night to challenge the Tide. The Tide defense played hard for their injured teammate. This showed as the Tide defense would only allow five first downs and less than hundred yards total offense to the Tigers. The Tide special teams would score again on another blocked punt in the third quarter in which Gabe Hinojosa broke through the line and blocked the ball out the back of the end zone for a safety.

 In between the Tide’s special teams scores, Richard ran for his second score of the game giving the Tide a 42-0 lead midway through the third quarter. After the safety, the Tide led 44-0 near the end of the third qurater. Richards by far the Tides leading rusher is also the Tides leading scorer with 22 touchdowns this year.

 Coach Lee, trying to run out the clock, put in most of his reserves on offense, but they wanted in on the scoring action too. On a second and nine from the Tide fourteen yard line, sophmore running back T’Darryl Greys broke the the left side of the line and outran the Tiger defense for an eighty-six yard score for what would be the final score, 51-0. 

 The Tide play host to Polarville next week for their final game of the season, a season which could easily be an undefeated one.