Mississippi Gulf Coast took a major step towards winning the South Division championship Thursday night.

Unfortunately for arch-rival Pearl River CC, it was at the expense of the Wildcats.

The homestanding Bulldogs, ranked 12th in the nation, won an unexpected 17-10 defensive battle against the 13th ranked Wildcats at A.L. May Stadium on the campus of MGC.

With the win, Gulf Coast moves to 4-1 overall on the season and remains perfect in league play at 3-0. PRCC had a three game win streak end, and falls to 3-2 overall and 2-1 in South Division play.

“We had a tremendous effort on defense, but we just didn’t play very well on offense,” PRCC head coach Tim Hatten said. “We knew we wouldn’t score 50 points on them, but we just stunk it up on  offense.”

The teams were tied at 10-10 entering the final period, but Reginald Matthews put Gulf Coast up for good on a 2-yard scoring plunge with just under 13 minutes to play.

“It was just another exciting game in this series,” Gulf Coast head coach Steve Campbell, who is now 6-4 against PRCC, said. “Both teams played hard and fought to the end.”

The Wildcats had three more possessions to tie the game up, with the final one ending when Melvin German hit Seth Roberts on a 45 yard pass to the Bulldog goal line but the officials ruled that Roberts was stopped just short of the end zone on the final play of the game.

“I thought he got in, but it was just too little too late at the end for us,” Hatten added.

The Wildcats were up 3-0 at halftime, thanks to Pacer Frierson’s 21-yard field goal as well as an outstanding defensive effort by the Wildcats paced by linebackers Quan Fletcher, Chris Bermond and Ketrick Wolfe. PRCC also got  interceptions from Derrick Bourne and Steve McNair Jr.

But the Bulldogs tied the game up on a 26-yard field goal by Taylor Pontius on the opening drive of the second half.

The Wildcats responded with their best drive of the night, and German hit Jacques Peters on a 8-yard scoring pass to make it 10-3.

Gulf Coast quarterback Raymond Cotton and his team immediately responded, and he scored on a 1-yard sneak to tie things up again entering the final period.

The Bulldog defense, led by cornerbacks Otis Jacobs and Alonzo Lawrence, held German, the nation’s top Juco quarterback in the nation statistically, to his worst outing of the year. Jacobs is headed to Texas A&M and Lawrence signed with Alabama out of high school.

“We have our backs against the wall now,” Hatten concluded. “We have to bounce back starting next week and fight to make the playoffs.”

The Wildcats host Co-Lin in South Division play Thursday night.