By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HURLEY — For the past six completed seasons, a prep baseball squad from Jackson County has played for a state championship.

In fact, in that span, seven different times four separate schools have competed for seven crowns and won five.

However, East Central is the lone hope left if that streak is to continue.

The Hornets head to Florence Wednesday night for the rubber match in game three of its Class 5A South State semifinals series with the Eagles. The winner advances on to the South State championship series to face South Jones later this week.

That’s because the Braves cut short defending Class 5A state champ Vancleave’s quest for consecutive crowns with a 4-1 decision in the third and final game of that series Tuesday night.

Before that, East Central won the Class 5A state title in back-to-back seasons in 2022 and 2023, and Resurrection won in those same campaigns. The Eagles and their crosstown counterparts Pascagoula both played for titles in 2021, and just before the Covid stricken season of 2020 St. Martin played for the Class 6A state title in 2019.

So it all comes down to what the Hornets do Wednesday night if the streak remains intact for the most southeastern county in the state, which has been known for many decades as one of the top prep baseball counties in the state of Mississippi.

In fact, prep baseball squads from Jackson County have won eight state championships in the past 17 years or so.

And it’s only fitting that the Hornets are the team left fighting to continue that streak as they 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 17 years Jackson County was the home of two state champions in the same season.

That, along with previous state crowns captured by Pascagoula and Vancleave (also in 2018) 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.