By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

PEARL — Prep baseball squads from Jackson County have won seven state championships in the past 15 years or so.

And if that success is to continue this season, then it’s all up to the Vancleave Bulldogs.

Vancleave is the last one of the eight Mississippi High School Activities Association members from the most southeastern county in the state still standing as the state championships open in seven separate classifications for the first time ever this week here at Trustmark Park.

The Bulldogs will be trying to keep the tradition and success alive produced by both East Central and Resurrection over the past two seasons when Vancleave faces Lafayette beginning Wednesday night here at the home of the Class AA Mississippi Braves.

“Yeah, that is a pretty cool opportunity,” sixth-year Vancleave head coach Justin Edwards said on Saturday. “The success of East Central and Resurrection speaks for itself. Both are incredible baseball programs led by great coaches. To have the chance to bring another title back to Jackson County is certainly something to take pride in.”

East Central captured the past two Class 5A state championships and the Hornets have four state crowns overall, also bringing home titles in 2008 and in 1981.

In 2008, both the Hornets and the Ocean Springs Greyhounds brought state titles back home to Jackson County meaning that three times in the past 16 years Jackson County was the home of two state champions in the same season.

That’s because also for the past two seasons, Resurrection captured back-to-back Class 1A state titles as well. That, along with previous state crowns captured by Pascagoula and Vancleave means that over half of the eight prep baseball playing in Jackson County have at one point been crowned as state champions on the diamond.

“I’ve always said that Jackson County has a rich history of baseball at all levels but especially in high school baseball,” legendary head coach and player Johnny Olsen, a Pascagoula native, said. 

And Olsen should know. He is the only head baseball coach in the “Southern Six” to guide two different squads to state championships after leading his alma mater Pascagoula to the title in 1996 and then Resurrection to its first title in 2022.

“There is some great baseball played all over the state of Mississippi,” Olsen added. “But I’d put the level of play in Jackson County over the years right up there with any other county in the state. And obviously, that level of play has continued in recent years as well.”

Before East Central grabbed its first state title in 1981, it had been 13 years since a Jackson County school had worn the crown when Pascagoula won back-to-back state titles in 1967 and 1968.

Following that run to the title by the Hornets, it didn’t take long for another championship trophy to show up as Pascagoula took the title two years later in 1983 when Olsen was an assistant with the Panthers. 

Pascagoula then won it in 1996 under Olsen and again in 2012 under another former Panther player in Richie Tillman.

Ocean Springs won its lone state championship in 2008, the same season East Central secured its second overall crown. Ten years later, Vancleave joined the elite company in the county when the Bulldogs brought home their only title trophy to date in 2018.

Now, six years late, the Bulldogs have their sights set on yet another state championship.

“When I first got here, I probably didn’t realize to the extent I do now just how good prep baseball has been traditionally in Jackson County,” Edwards concluded. “Being over here for the last six years has made me realize just how good baseball is in this county though. I’ve always admired the programs in this area. And now, even more so being right in the thick of it.”