By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

With the end of yet another prep softball season there usually comes a coaching change or two.

And the current season, which just wrapped up Saturday, is no different.

And the latest one involves two of the more well known faces in prep softball circles in South Mississippi.

SouthMiss6 Sports has learned through sources close to the situation that former East Central head softball coach Kyle Long will be the next head coach at Vancleave High very soon. Long will succeed longtime Lady Bulldogs mentor Donna Bragg, who recently retired after a lengthy term at the helm of the squad.

Long leaves his current post at Greene County High as the head coach of the Lady Wildcats to take over at Vancleave. The move won’t be made official until the next meeting of The Jackson County School Board on June 10th.

Long returns to Jackson County after spending several seasons in Leakesville. He guided East Central for almost a decade including a trip to the 2013 state championship series before the Lady Hornets fell to perennial state power Neshoba Central. He then again led ECHS to the state finals in 2021 before once more running into NCHS with similar results.

He left Hurley after the 2021 season to take a similar post at Oxford High School before returning to South Mississippi and landing at Greene County High soon after that.

He is the son of legendary head coach Kenneth Long, a longtime successful head softball coach on both the prep and juco levels as coached Gulf Coast Community College for 18 seasons before retiring after the 2019 season with a 584-232 record. His teams won four MACJC state championships and four NJCAA Region 23 titles. The Lady Bulldogs have been to four national tournaments, with the 2007 team finishing third. He recently returned to MGC after a few years of retirement

Kyle Long was an assistant under his father when the elder Long was the head coach at East Central from 1997 to 2001, winning the MHSAA Class 4A state championship in 2001.

He replaces Bragg, who produced perennial state playoff participating teams at the helm of the Lady Bulldogs. She guided Vancleave to the Class 5A South State championship series this season before falling to arch-rival East Central.

The Lady Hornets were one of a trio of “Southern Six” softball squads to make a trip to the state finals in Hattiesburg to wrap up the season last week.

East Central, Hancock and St. Patrick went a combined 0-6 in the state finals.