The history between South Panola and Tupelo is as varied as the record.

South Panola holds an 11-6 winning record over Tupelo since 1990, including two playoff matchups.

The Tigers will travel to Golden Wave territory tonight for another Region 1-5A district matchup.

South Panola broke the state’s longest winning streak record last Friday night with a shutout win over Columbus 42-0. The Tigers will go for their 53rd straight win against a very determined Tupelo team.

Tupelo (4-2 overall, 3-0 district) lost its first two games of the season to Clinton and Louisville, respectively.

The Golden Wave have systematically walked through the last four games with little trouble except for last week’s 16-7 win over Southaven. Before then, the Golden Wave whipped Columbus 45-20 and stunned Starkville and the district with a 35-9 win over the Yellowjackets.

Word through the grapevine is that Tupelo is ready for the Tigers.

The Northeast Daily Journal reports that the Golden Wave team is looking forward to the matchup with the Tigers.

The Golden Wave lost starting tailback Kenneth Davis to a sprained knee ligament, for which he will be sidelined for about four weeks.

Replacing him will be senior defensive back/running back Rod Zinn and wide receiver Chad Bumphis in the offensive backfield.

Journal reporter Gene Phelps opened his article Thursday with the question, "The streak has to end somewhere, why not here on Friday night?"
South Panola defensive leader senior Chris Strong reiterates, the Tigers’ goals include ending the year 60-0 with a fourth straight state championship.
Kickoff tonight for this 1-5A Regional matchup is 7 p.m. at Golden Wave stadium.

Directions: Take Highway 6 East through Oxford. The new bypass is complete. Don’t have to take Pontotoc exit. Just keep straight on Highway 6 until it comes to an end. Take left and will put you back on 278 to go straight into Tupelo. When get to Cliff Gookin (big traffic light) take a right. School is on right about a mile.
 

Fall is a special time for many reasons, but one of the best out here at Brownspur is, the little owls start calling again.

I don’t know whether it’s the cooler weather or what, but we can sit out on the back porch or at Betsy’s High Place, and there will be two or three screech owls talking back and forth from the Mammy Grudge out back, to the persimmon grove out front, to the oaks that hold my hammock.

There’s really no good way to write a screech owl’s call, but it’s "wooo-oooo-oooo" in a quavering soft cry that sends chills up your spine, if it’s unexpected, in the delicious sensation my grandmother used to say was, "a goose ran over my grave."

Wonder why she said that? Anyway, some screech owls are soprano and some are alto, just like in the Choir, and they have a lot of breath control because sometimes they will start on an exhale and then duplicate their cry on an inhale, without pausing for a breath between. To me, there is no wilder sound.

Having said that, let me say that we’ve had tame screech owls here. They make the best little pets you can imagine, and are wonderful watchbirds.

We had one named Hoot once (I don’t know why we called him Hoot; screech owls don’t hoot) who lived loose on the back screen porch. His favorite perch was on the top of a board propped up against the wall at the end of the porch next to the garage door.

At the time B.C. brought him into our home, I was tanning a copperhead skin on that board and Hoot refused to let me have the board back when the skin was tanned.

Anyway, when a stranger entered the porch from the garage, Hoot would sit still unnoticed until the person got about halfway down the porch, then dive bomb him from the rear, zooming just above his head, and swooping down in front of his face, while calling an alarm to the household. We had more visitors run through the porch screen that summer!

Hoot enjoyed slipping into the house, tricking us by easing backward through B.C.’s bedroom window, which opened onto the porch.

Then he’d head for the high ceilings and hiding places in the main part of the house. He’d lie on the neck of a mounted deer head on the den wall, his ears and eyes barely visible behind the antlers, or his other favorite spot was in the mouth of a mounted eight-pound bass.

We’d tiptoe through the house, making that "wooo-oooo-oooo" sound, and he couldn’t resist answering. It was a game of hide and seek to Hoot.

When we finally let Hoot go (he fell in love with Miz Hoot, a lady owl who would light in the rosebush right outside the screen porch and talk to him) at puberty, he departed for a few months with his true love, then returned that spring with her to serenade us, showing off their twins. Surely their progeny still live around here.

We briefly tried to rehab a car-wreck victim we named Monfred The Red Baron because he was not only a rare red-phase owl, but his injured eye was blood-filled, so he appeared to be looking through a monocle, and Christie said he had definitely attacked the car on a low-level bombing run.

Monfred seemed to realize we were trying to help him, and while he lived less than a week, he knew a lot of love as our guest.

Don Quixote was an owl who really had a feud with the household ceiling fans, and you have to give him credit for being single-minded. He finally learned to fly to ceiling level along a wall, then swoop down onto the fan motor from the top side!

But true to some of the rest of us Brownspur residents, he learned that the hard way. He also experienced a name change because of that hard-headedness.

Gordo was the little owl who was smart enough to reason that the mice we were feeding him came directly from the mouse traps. We usually ran a home trapline for the periods we kept owls, so as to keep them acclimated to non-people food after we released them back to the wild.

One morning I heard a trap on the porch "Snap!" then heard trap-dragging noises: Gordo had gone straight to the food source, but it caught him! He recovered, but swore off of mice for a while, so we went to lizards.

Our last little owl we called Junior, but Momma came back for him, bringing his older siblings, Bert and Ernie: one tall, and one short. He wasn’t orphaned after all!

Delta Academy will hold a Delta Jamboree Tuesday, October 17. North Delta will play at 3:25 p.m. and at 5:55 p.m.

North Delta will host a preseason tournament Monday, October 23 through Thursday, October 26.

Thousands of loyal Tiger fans were on hand to witness South Panola breaking the state record for consecutive wins Friday night.

The Tigers are 52-0 after a 42-0 win over the Columbus Falcons in Robert H. Dunlap Stadium. The record dates back to the first game of the 2003 season. Under head coach Ricky Woods, the Tigers hold an impressive 66-1 record through four and a half seasons.

Mississippi High School Activities Association Director Ennis Proctor was on hand to present the coaches, along with superintendent Dr. Keith Shaffer and principal Dr. Gearl Loden, with tokens of appreciation to commemorate the feat.

"You will remember this the rest of your lives," Proctor told the players, coaches and fans who stayed to watch the postgame ceremony, including fireworks.

Before the game, the Ole Miss handbell choir signed the National Anthem as the South Panola band played while the ROTC presented the colors. Former South Panola student Whitney Stafford was part of that choir.

Presenting the colors were Shaniquaw Patterson, Eddie Fondren, Aquarius Wallace and Brittany Broadnax.

The South Panola cheerleaders presented the coaches and players with a cake that had Congratulations South Panola, 52-0, on the top.

Though the actual game had to be played, preparations for Friday’s game had been taking place all week long. Members of The Clarion Ledger were on hand most of the day interviewing the coaches and spending time getting to know Batesville.

The Clarion Ledger featured the Tigers in a big spread, the front page of the news section and the front page of the sports section.

Now that the milestone has been reached, South Panola will continue the march through the end of the season.

A spokesperson for Grenada on the Mississippi High School Scoreboard Show said Grenada wants South Panola to keep on winning. He said the Chargers have something for South Panola on November 3.

Tiger Chris Strong, who was just named to the U.S. Army All-American team, said the next goal for the Tigers is to go 60-0. The Tigers need to finish out the season undefeated with a state championship to reach that goal.

"I believe this is the best team that has ever come through Mississippi," Strong said. "We want to thank the coaching staff a whole lot."

The North Delta Green Wave (4-3 overall, 2-1 district) will travel for two hours tonight to the state of Arkansas for the second time this season as they take on the 2A Lee Academy Cougars (3-4 overall, 0-2 district) from Marianna.

The Cougars’ first win came on September 29, when they shut out 1A Tunica Institute 37-0. Two weeks ago, they defeated 1A Bayou Academy 34-27. Last Friday night, they shut out 1A Strider Academy 36-0. They lost the first four games but have bounced back the last three weeks to win.

"Coach Holcombe was suffering through the very similar things that we did," Green Wave head Richard Russo said. "He had a lot of inexperience in a lot of key areas. They have been making improvements all throughout the season, and it is starting to pay off with victories."

The Green Wave on the other hand are coming off of an upset win from last Friday night when they ended the perfect season for the 2A Delta Academy Raiders from Marks 33-28.

The Green Wave and the Cougars are no strangers when it comes to matching up in football. Last year, the Green Wave hosted the Cougars for homecoming night. The Green Wave ended the Cougars’ perfect 7-0 season with a 20-13 win.

In 2004, both teams were undefeated when the Green Wave traveled to Marianna to spoil the Cougars’ perfect season again. The Green Wave walked over them with a 46-14 victory.

The Cougars are very serious about their football program. Their fans come out and support them even if it is raining so hard that you can’t even see the team play. Everyone has seen that.

They will come into this game with one thing on their minds and that will be revenge, according to Russo.

They will be looking to repay the Green Wave for spoiling their perfect season two years in a row.

This will be the second straight week in which the Green Wave will step out of conference play and Russo said he absolutely hates it.

"If it were up to me, the first six games would be non-district games and the last five would be district games," he said. "It would be the same for everybody. That is what the public school does and it is the smartest thing in the world. I can’t control the schedule, but I can just control how we prepare in practice."

Russo described watching the Cougars play like watching arena football.

"They have 12 different formations, and they throw it all over the field," Russo said. "They attack the bubble, the flat, the hook, and the curl zone. They throw it deep, and they sling it all over the place.

"They do the opposite of most teams," Russo continued. "They use the pass to set up the run, so when you least expect it, they run the quarterback or tailback on a counter run play."

The quarterback, Greg Gibson, is a 5’10" junior weighing 170 pounds. According to Russo, he is very fast and has a pretty accurate arm as well.

The running back, Ross Dunn, is a 5’10" junior who also weighs 170 pounds.

"He (Dunn) runs hard between the tackles and he doesn’t mind running it up there," Russo said.

Rhett Morphis and Jason Carter are the go to receivers.

The Cougars’ offense came back and scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to win over Bayou. Russo was impressed with them.

"They took to heart the fact that you have to play every play and play every quarter regardless of the scoreboard," Russo said. "I was impressed with the way that they came back when we watched the film. They are dangerous because they know how to win. They have been to the State Championship game two straight years, so obviously they know how to win. They just had to overcome a little inexperience. They have a lot of character and I am impressed with that also."

The Cougars line up in a 5-2 defense with four defensive backs.

"They run four defensive backs the same as we do and they do a real good job," Russo said. "They have good game plans. They slowed down Bayou’s option attack which many teams haven’t been able to do this year."

Russo described the Cougars’ punt formation as the "absolute craziest punt formation that I have ever seen in the history of football."

He went on to explain how the players line up, one on each sideline and the front seven are spaced out about seven yards a piece.

"It is very interesting," he said. "I have never seen that before."

Because the Cougars have been to the state championship game two straight years, Russo said he is anxious to see how the Green Waves match up to them.

Captains for tonight’s game are Nick Douglas, Dakota Mabry, and Britton Crawford.

The pep rally for the team will be at 2:30 p.m. in the school gym. The pregame show will be at 7 p.m. tonight and kickoff will be at 7:30 p.m.

Directions to Lee Marianna: Take Hwy 6 West to Clarksdale. Turn right onto Hwy 61 North and go about 13 miles until you see a sign that says Helena, Ark. or the Isle of Capri Casino at Lula, MS. Take a left onto US-49 and go 10.1 miles crossing the Mississippi River bridge into Arkansas. Turn left onto US-49 North and go 11.3 miles. Turn right onto Hwy 1 and go 11.1 miles. Turn left onto Hwy 243 and go 1 mile. Lee Academy is at 973 Hwy 243. It is 77.20 miles and takes around two hours to get there.