By Doug Barber

Special to the Sun Herald

Long Beach — Shaun Anderson ran for 287 yards and four touchdowns Friday night as Picayune won its seventh straight game with a 47-26 decision over Long Beach at Lumpkin-Magee Stadium.

Anderson scored on runs of 59, 7, 9 and 57 yards a week after setting the school single-game rushing record with 401 yards.

Picayune is now 7-1 overall and 4-0 in Region 4-5A heading into a matchup with Hattiesburg.

Long Beach fell to 5-3, 2-2 despite amassing 446 yards in total offense. Picayune rushed for 521 yards.

“We haven’t played our best game yet, I hope,’’ Picayune coach Dodd Lee said. “We can play better. I think we did a lot of good things tonight. But we don’t have any consistency. We just have to get better. If we play like this next week, the score will get turned around.’’

Long Beach jumped on top 7-0 on a 9-yard run by Dennis Andrews. Andrews also scored on a 64-yard TD run as he gained 190 yards on 16 carries.

An 8-yard TD run by quarterback Tyler Penton and an 11-yard TD run by David Baker enabled Picayune to grab a 13-7 lead. Andrews’ 64-yard TD run gave Long Beach its last lead at 14-13 and Anderson 59-yard romp moment later gave Picayune the lead for good at 19-14 with 1:35 left in the first quarter.

Cade Crosby tossed a 4-yard TD pass to Da’Juan Masters to cut the Tide lead to 33-20 at halftime.

Crosby threw for 131 yards but was picked off twice. Also, the Tide defense recovered a fumble and stopped Long Beach on fourth-and-1 at the Bearcat 20.

“I’m not really focused (on the yards), I’m focused on winning,’’ Anderson said. “The offensive line, I love them.’’

Baker also ran for 123 yards on 11 carries, and scored his second TD of the night in the third quarter — an 11-yard run for a 40-20 lead. Kobe Cook scored Long Beach’s final TD with a 2-yard run.Long Beach hosts West Harrison next week.

“Against a team as good as Picayune, you don’t have an opportunity to make a lot of mistakes,” Long Beach coach Forrest Williams said. “We didn’t make that play on fourth down. We just didn’t want them to have the ball on offense. (Anderson) is a special back. I’m proud of our effort. We came out in the second half and pressed them defensively but we didn’t make enough plays on offense.”