Twice Seminary has played for a state championship in football, and Brian Rials was a part of both teams. Just a year after winning their first playoff game in school history, the Bulldogs broke through in 2003, capturing the Class 2A State Championship under the leadership of head coach Lance Mancuso and his assistants, including Rials.
In 2005, Rials took the reigns of the program, and he just completed his 14th season as their head man. Safe to say it was a memorable one for Rials and the Bulldogs, who rode an 11-game winning streak into the Class 3A State Championship game at Southern Miss’ M.M. Roberts Stadium.
Though they came up short there against Water Valley, Rials will always look back fondly on Seminary’s 2018 season.
“Just excited for this town, this community and this school,” Rials said. “The people that showed up and the support we’ve had this year has just been amazing. It was a great group of young men to work with and a great coaching staff.
“We gave it all we had, so all we can do is hold our heads high and be proud of what they accomplished.”
Rials called it a different group of kids. Defensively and, at times, offensively, the Bulldogs were led by Nathan Pickering, who is one of the state’s most sought after recruits. But behind Pickering, Rials says his roster was filled with just a bunch of solid football players.
“We had guys on the offensive line that had never even played before,” Rials said. “A manager last year winds up starting for us. A guy that used to be a receiver and linebacker winds up being a starting guard for us. It was kind of a makeshift offensive line and a group of kids that just bought in to whatever we asked them to do.
“I guess that’s what makes it more special. It wasn’t a group of Division I football players. It was just a group of guys that wanted to work hard and wanted to win and just bought into it.”
Because of a tough non-district schedule, Seminary took some early losses and started the season 1-3. Two of the teams they lost to in that span (Taylorsville and Poplarville) went on to play for state titles in their respective classification, and the other (Collins) reached the double-digit win mark and the third round of the postseason.
After that tough stretch, the Bulldogs rattled off 11 straight wins, beating the likes of contenders Jefferson Davis County (twice), Columbia, Tylertown and Winona in close, back-and-forth contests en route to Region 8-3A and Class 3A South State titles.
“With the tradition that Bassfield/JDC has, any time you can beat them you know you got something special going,” Rials said. “The district championship and beating Columbia, who had the best year they’ve had in a long time, was very special. Every game seemed like it took everything out of us, and they’d find a way to do it again the next week.”
After falling down 28-6 to Water Valley in the title game, Seminary made a late push and cut the Blue Devil lead to six points late in the fourth quarter, but time eventually ran out on the Bulldogs’ storybook season.
“Yeah, we lost that one game, but we accomplished way more than what most people did this year. It’s special,” Rials said. “It was a fun year, and hopefully we’ve set the bar to where that’s where we wanna be every year.”
Rials is our 2018 Sports601 Hattiesburg/Covington Coach of the Year.
