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Porter's Chapel Academy's jase Jung tries to escape a Prairie View Academy defender during Friday's game. Jung rushed for 355 yards and three touchdowns, but Prairie View beat PCA 49-38 to clinch the MAIS District 3-2A championship. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's football team runs onto the field before Friday's game against Prairie View Academy. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's senior football players are honored during a senior night ceremony before Friday's game against Prairie View Academy. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Henry Slayton (22) runs with the football againstPrairie View Academy. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Auston Moore (11) carries the football as two Prairie View Academy defenders grab at his jersey. Moore rushed for 45 yards and a touchdown, but Prairie View beat PCA 49-38. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Hunter Simms (4) runs with the football as a Prairie View defender closes in during Friday's game. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy football head coach Blake Purvis talks to his during a timeout in Friday's game against Prairie View Academy. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Auston Moore (11) crosses the goal line for a touchdown against Prairie View Academy. Moore rushed for 45 yards and a touchdown, but Prairie View beat PCA 49-38. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy football head coach Blake Purvis talks to his team after their 49-38 loss to Prairie View Academy on Friday. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

In a seesaw game for the MAIS District 3-2A championship, Prairie View Academy finished off Porter’s Chapel Academy with a big old cherry bomb.

Hayden Little threw a 76-yard touchdown pass to Mason Tullos for the go-ahead score with 3:43 remaining, and Landyn Deville returned an interception for a touchdown a minute later to give Prairie View a 49-38 victory over PCA for the district title.

“It’s tough. That’s part of it,” PCA coach Blake Purvis said. “We played our tails off. I’m proud of them. We just came up a few plays short at the end. That’s all there was to it.”

Prairie View (11-0, 3-0 District 3-2A) earned a first-round bye in the Class 2A playoffs. Porter’s Chapel (7-4, 2-1) gets the No. 8 seed and play at home against Park Place next week. PCA beat Park Place 22-20 when the teams played in Pearl in September.

Although disappointed not to get the district championship and the rewards that come with it, Purvis was philosophical. The No. 4 seed that the Eagles would have gotten for winning Friday is on the same side of the bracket as No. 8, meaning their path through the playoffs is the same.

“We’re on the same side of the bracket. We’ve just got to play one more game,” Purvis said. “That’s just another game to practice, another game to clean up what we’re doing, and the path’s still the same. We’re going to have to go through (No. 1 seed) Desoto, Arkansas. It was going to be the second round or the semifinals. We’re going to do what we do and take it one week at a time and try to go make some noise.”

Porter’s Chapel’s Jase Jung had another big night running the football, with 355 yards and three touchdowns on 34 carries. His 3-yard TD with 1:26 left in the third quarter put the Eagles ahead 38-35 and seemed like it might stand up as the game-winner until Prairie View’s late surge.

Little threw two incompletions and fell on a fumbled snap to put the Spartans into a fourth-and-17 from their own 24-yard line. Little threw a deep ball that Tullos caught in stride as the defender fell, and Tullos took it to the end zone for the touchdown.

On PCA’s next series, the Eagles went away from the run and Jung was flushed from the pocket. He tried to throw the ball away into the line, but it went right to Deville instead. The junior returned it 30 yards for the touchdown and a 49-38 Prairie View lead with 2:36 left.

Jung started PCA’s final drive with a 40-yard run to move the ball into the red zone, but another passing play ended in misery. Chad Fuson threw a jump ball into the front left corner of the end zone and Cole Murphy outfought Jung for it to secure the game-clinching interception with 1:18 remaining.

Little finished 5-of-11 passing for 195 yards — two to Tullos — and also ran for a team-high 73 yards and two touchdowns.

Henry Slayton led PCA’s defense with five tackles, two sacks, and a 76-yard fumble return touchdown in the first half.

Morris Bailey and Schaffer Bell also had five tackles each for the Eagles, and Hunter Simms had seven as well as one sack.

“They capitalized on a few of our mistakes and we capitalized on a few of theirs. Down the stretch, they just made a couple more plays than us,” Purvis said. “I think our guys proved we can go toe-to-toe with a giant and I think we’ll come back next week ready to get after it and see if we can make some noise in this thing.”

MAIS Class 2A playoffs
First round – Friday, Nov. 1
Park Place at Porter’s Chapel
Deer Creek at Newton County Academy
Prentiss Christian at Tunica Academy
Christian Collegiate at Delta Academy

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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