By CURTIS ROCKWELL

Item Sports Editor

Picayune will open the Class 4A South State baseball playoffs against Mendenhall.

The Maroon Tide, ranked 12th in the state, won Division 8-4A while the Tigers finished fourth in Division 6-4A.

Picayune will travel to Mendenhall for one game on Friday night at 6 p.m., and then host the Tigers at 1 p.m., on Saturday for either game two and three if necessary in the best of three series.

The winner of this series faces the winner of the Vancleave-South Jones series.

Poplarville softball

Poplarville opens the Class 4A South State semifinals at home Thursday against East Central. Game time is set for 7 p.m. After Thursday’s game, games two and three if necessary will take place in Hurley on Saturday afternoon.

The winner of this series faces the winner of the D’Iberville-Bay High series in the South State finals.

Local golf

Several local prep golf teams competed in a tournament hosted by Hancock at The Bridges in Bay St. Louis last week.

The host team Hawks won the event with a 334 score, while Picayune finished second at 337 as Josh Guidry shot a 79 for the Tide followed by Jamal Thompson (80), Andrew Barr (87), Vince Leleux (91) and Jeremy Roberts (92) for Picayune. Pearl River Central was third with a 339.

Also, on Thursday April 2nd, Pearl River Central hosted a three team meet at Millbrook Country Club and the Blue Devils won with a 320 score as Bull Mixon took medalist honors firing a 75

Picayune was second led by Guidry’s 76 and Jamal Thompson’s 77.

Most of the local teams will be competing in a match today at The Oaks hosted by Long Beach. The division meet is slated for next week in Diamondhead.

Local thinclads

The Division 8-4A track and field meet got underway Tuesday at Long Beach’s Lumpkin-Magee Stadium.

The field event finals along with the 3,200 meter run finals took place, along with some running preliminaries. The running finals will take place Thursday. The top four finisher’s in each event advance to next week’s Region meet.

Results from all of the local performers that advance will appear during the week in the Item.

Also, Picayune’s boys won a recent meet that took place in Long Beach.

Justin Quinn finished 1st in the 100m with a time of 10.81, he also finished 1st in the 200m with a time of 22.08. Jonathan Moore finished 1st in the 300m Hurdles with a time of 51.03, he also finished 2nd in the 110m Hurdles with a time of 15.22. Derionne Stewart finished 2nd in the 400m with a time of 51.21. Jonathan Billups came in 1st in the Shot Put with a throw of 43′. Reggie Bailey finished 2nd in the Triple Jump landing 43′ 2″. Micah Bergeron placed 2nd in the Pole Vault clearing 12′.

The 4×100 Relay Team finished 1st, The 4×200 Relay Team finished 1st, and the 4×400 Relay Team finished 1st.

Also, Poplarville and Pearl River Central participated in a meet recently at Bay High with Poplarville’s boys finishing tied for second with 95 points just one point behind the winning Bay High team. PRC finished seventh with 46 points.

For the Hornets, Irvin Brown took first place in the 400 meters with a time of 51.0, while Lavelle Henry won the shot put and finished third in the Discus. The 4X100 meter relay team of Phillip Travis, Nekko Lockhart, Dexter Travis and Brown too first place as well. Travis also too second pace in the 800 meter run, and Brown finished second in the long jump.

In girls action, Poplarville finished fourth with 80 points while PRC finished sixth with 56.

For the Lady Hornets, Bretta Hart took first place in the long jump at 15-11, and she also captured first place in the triple jump at 30-7. Raven Purnell was second in the discus, while Landon Smith was second in the 400 meters.