Kim Griffin of Vicksburg High flies in as Southaven’s Laurie Fair braces for the collision Tuesday night. Griffin scored two goals for the Missy Gators in the 6-1 second-round playoff win. (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[02/07/01] Courtney Chapman took all of 51 seconds to start an onslaught that landed Vicksburg High (17-4) in its fifth North State championship game in six years.

Chapman scored two goals the first less than a minute into the game and had three assists to lead the Missy Gators to a 6-1 thumping of Division 2-5A champion Southaven (10-3) Tuesday at Memorial Stadium.

A date with Clinton, a team that handed the Missy Gators three of their four losses, now looms for the three-time state champions on Friday at 4 p.m. at Clinton Middle School.

“I’m excited,” junior Leanne Feibelman said of her team’s trip back to the final four. “I was kind of upset last year, but we tried.”

The Missy Gators took a 3-1 lead into halftime and kept the Lady Chargers off the board the entire second half.

Kim Griffin scored a pair of goals one on a throw-in that sailed over goalie Maggie McEwan’s head and Brandi Parker and Neely Nasif each scored a goal.

Angie Brice scored the lone goal for Southaven.

“We made a lot of mistakes and gave them easy goals,” Southaven assistant coach Charlie Brice said. “That threw us all out of our game plan. We wanted to go with two sweepers, but had to end up going back to a goalkeeper/sweeper.”

Christy Baldwin, listed on the roster as a sweeper, replaced McEwan early in the first half and the Missy Gators holding a 2-0 lead.

Baldwin hovered around midfield, then would retreat to the goal when Vicksburg would take control. She even started the Lady Chargers’ score with a direct kick that bounced off VHS goalie Viola Howard’s hands and Brice kicked in the rebound.

For most of the game, though, the Lady Chargers were on the defensive. The Missy Gators outshot Southaven 23-6, but Howard had only two shots at her on goal.

“There were some times that we weren’t playing up to our potential,” Vicksburg coach Kevin Manton said. “We had a lot of time in between goals, but give them some credit, they were the reason we weren’t scoring.”

Griffin scored her second goal three minutes into the second half on assist from Chapman for a 3-1 lead. Seven minutes later, Nasif upped the lead to 5-1 on an assist from Beth Ashby. Chapman put the finishing touches on the game with a breakaway goal 33 minutes into the second half.

Manton said Friday’s North State title game will be very competitive.

“Every time we’ve played the last seven or eight years against Clinton or Madison it’s been one goal,” Manton said. ” … We’d like to play Clinton again and get a chance to beat them, but we’d like to see Madison because we’ve only played them once.”