The Picayune Maroon Tide football team fell to the West Point Green Wave in a battle for the title of 5A state champion Saturday.

Picayune was trying to send its Head Coach Dodd Lee out with a bang as Lee coached the final game of his decorated career.

But as West Point used big plays on the offensive side of the ball to come out with a 38-26 victory.

Picayune got off to a good start by taking the ball 73 yards in almost seven minutes to start the game ending the drive with a 9-yard touchdown run from running back Cameron Thomas.

West Point answered with a scoring drive of their own as quarterback Brandon Harris took the ball in from 3-yards out to tie the game up. Offensively, West Point was explosive scoring twice more before Picayune started mounting a comeback.

Thomas took off down the sideline for a 76-yard touchdown run to bring the game to 21-14.

Safety Jalen Hall intercepted Harris’ pass on the ensuing drive and took the ball into the end zone from 39 yards out.

Austin Samples came on for his third extra point, but it went wide, leaving West Point with a 21-20 lead heading into halftime.

West Point opened the second half once again moving the ball well offensively.

The Green Wave scored on a 5-yard touchdown run from Harris and West Point scored again on the next drive thanks to a field goal from kicker Alex Harper to extend the lead to 31-20.

Following the field goal Picayune needed to score quickly and the Maroon Tide did just that with quarterback Isaac Hickman hitting Thomas out of the backfield for a 70-yard touchdown pass. 

The 2-point conversion was no good and with the lead down to just five points it was still anyone’s game.

Harris ended up sealing the victory for West Point when he took a quarterback keeper in from two yards out with 3:54 left in the game.

Harper’s extra point was good and the Maroon Tide couldn’t claw its way back after a valiant effort from the offense. Thomas amassed 256 all-purpose yards and Hickman had 104 yards through the air, but it wasn’t enough to give Lee another state title to take into retirement. After the game Lee, said the game was a physical test for his team and West Point ended up making more plays. “It was a war down here tonight, we just came out on the short end of it,” Lee said.