By Myra Bean
Tupelo was the last team that South Panola lost to. That was in 2013 in the North Half championship, 12-3.

Twenty-two games later, the Tigers have the longest win streak in the state as they welcome the Golden Wave to Robert H. Dunlap Stadium tonight in a 7 p.m. kickoff.

“We are looking forward to it,” said Tiger head coach Lance Pogue. “We have had some battles with them through the years. It should be another fun night in Tiger stadium.”

Tupelo had a very interesting week last Friday as the district game with Southaven ended at 11:30 p.m. in a 13-7 overtime loss.

Tupelo (3-4 overall, 1-2 district) enters tonight’s game with a fairly young team, led by three-year starter senior quarterback Daniel Bristow (6’4”, 197), who wears No. 3.

Bristow has completed 70 or 124 pass attempts for a 57 percent completion rate. He has 927 passing yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions. He has rushed for 249 yards on 46 carries and two touchdowns.

“Their record is misleading,” Pogue said. “They lost some pretty tough, close games. They lost to Clarksdale right off the bat, lots of turnovers, barely lost that game. They lost a heartbreaker to Southaven the other night in overtime.”

 Two leading rushers are juniors Kegan Huddleston, who wears No. 7, with 365 yards on 56 carries and two touchdowns and Labryant Siddell wears No. 21. Siddell has 318 yards on 55 carries and two touchdowns.

It is a good bet most South Panola fans have their favorite memories of clashes with Tupelo. Assistant coach Terrance “Flutty” Pope remembers when he was a player in 2007 and some hi-low blocks he received at the hands of Tupelo. Pogue brought up that 2008 game at Tupelo when South Panola won 14-13. The two-point conversion pass attempt was thwarted by the defensive play of former Tigers Temario Strong and David Conner.

Then two years ago, South Panola defeated Tupelo in regular season to win the district championship but lost in the north half championship after quarterback Rip Kirk and running back Darrell Henderson went down at halftime to injuries.

Despite their record, Tupelo plays hard, according to Pogue.

“They are playing with a sense of urgency and from that standpoint we will get their best shot. That is nothing new to us. But to them it always seems like it’s a battle. They have a fairly young team,” he said.

Tupelo lost 33-9 to Columbus but they dropped four touchdown passes.

“They just dropped them,” Pogue said. “If they had held on to them, they would be right there in that game. They have had some snakebit luck.”

Defensively, Tupelo is strong. The defense has five interceptions, 11 fumble recoveries for 122 yards, caused nine fumbles and have 18 pass deflections. They are averaging 69.4 tackles per game. However, they only have nine sacks on the season.

On the Tiger end, Pogue said they are feeling good about the team. The players are getting to where they want them to be this time of year.

“You never know about every Friday,” he said. “Each game has a different life of its own. Just got to be ready each Friday. We want to continue to work on things to get better. I saw a lot of that the other night. I saw a lot of things that popped up in our kicking game that had been good for us that we made mistakes. We went back to practice to try to get good at it.”

Tonight will be some more possibly big 1-6A district games. In addition to Tupelo at South Panola, Olive Branch is at Horn Lake. Columbus is at Southaven and Hernando is at Desoto Central.

“We would love to see a full house with fans there tonight,” Pogue said. Fans traveled well to Hernando and filled up the visitor side last week.

The game will be broadcast on WBLE 100.5 FM and video streamed live on www.panolian.com and click on the SP Tiger Den link or audio streamed on the WBLE link.