Gulf Coast pulls away early from Warriors

Mississippi Gulf Coast jumped out to a big lead Thursday in Decatur and never looked back, downing East Central 79-62.

Zakariyya Dwight (Fr., Cordele, Ga./Crisp County) had a season-high 24 points for the Bulldogs, who scored 25 of the first 30 points.

"He's a really good cutter, and he got some easy ones of cutting," Gulf Coast coach Owen Miller said. "He got on the offensive glass and was able to get some put-backs and some easy ones in transition. He really played well, and played well defensively too. I'm just happy to see him break out. He needed that."

Duran Parish (So., Biloxi/Biloxi) was the only other double-digit scorer with 16. Seven other Bulldogs scored, with Parish spreading the wealth.

"He really made good decisions with the ball tonight," Miller said. "They really sagged off, and he was able to find open guys, especially in our cutting game. He just made really solid decisions and easy plays and was able to get the guys easy shots."

The Bulldogs (16-4, 3-2 MACCC) moved into seventh place in the conference. East Central is 5-15, 1-5. 

Gulf Coast completed a regular-season sweep of the Warriors, having beaten them 101-68 at Perk in December.

"We played well defensively. We were really good," Miller said. We had a spell in the second half where we kinda lost focus, but I thought defensively we carried out the scouting report as good as we have all year. We didn't make many mistakes, and we had a lot of guys make a lot of good plays."

Gulf Coast is back home Monday when East Mississippi visits. Tipoff at Dantzler Arena is set for 7:30 p.m.

For more information on MGCCC's 12 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.