MGCCC Men’s Soccer gearing up for nationals

Next week, the men’s soccer teams from both Mississippi Gulf Coast and Pearl River will be making their first-ever appearances in the NJCAA Division II Tournament.

The Bulldogs actually beat the Wildcats in the state title game to punch their ticket and today they invited the media out to practice before they hit the road for Wichita, Kansas.

In Sunday’s MACCC and Region 23 championship game, Gulf Coast had to rally from a goal down twice, forcing overtime, and eventually penalty kicks.

St. Patrick alum Zach Seymour saved the Wildcats’ eighth attempt, setting the stage for Fabien Barker to walk it off with a big boot right down the middle.

That crowning moment giving Gulf Coast an automatic bid to nationals and a long overdue celebration for Head Coach Chris Handy, whose teams had lost in this same game four times, most recently to PRCC two years ago in PKs.

Poetic justice for the Bulldogs who now get their shot at immorality. MGCCC Center Back Chad Hudson said, “You want it a little bit more because it’s against a rival, and just going into the game, I just had the mentality that I wasn’t going to lose, no matter what happened.”

MGCCC Defender Witwise Akyeano said, “They crossed it in and their defender headers it out in the box. I see it. And like I said, they call me the ‘fox in the box.’ I just put it in to the goal. I didn’t think anything about it. I just wanted to hit it, and happily it went in and it was amazing.”

MGCCC Midfielder Ashton Taylor said, “To me, it’s awesome. I’ve never played at this high of a level before. I think the team is excited. We’re looking forward to it. We want to win it all. We don’t want to go down there just two play two games. We want to win it all.”

Coach Handy said, “I’m not even sure whether I enjoyed winning or enjoyed just not losing for once, so definitely there was a feeling of relief to get it done. I think there is a healthy amount of respect for our program and what we can do, we just needed that last chip to prove that what we were doing was correct.”

MGCCC heads into nationals with an overall mark of 11-5-2.

Here’s how it stacks up for both local programs, Gulf Coast and Pearl River, two of the 12 heading to nationals, starting with the nine-seed Bulldogs in pool D and then the three-seed Wildcats in pool C.

Between the two teams, there are 29 players from the six coastal counties.