By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

(Editors Note: This is the fourth of a seven part series on how new region alignments will stack up for teams in the “Southern Six” next season)

When the new region realignments were announced for the 2025-2027 school years by the Mississippi High School Activities Association some six months ago, the state football playoffs were in full steam, the state volleyball championships trophies had just been handed out and the prep basketball regular season was just getting cranked up.

Then, as the winter sports gave way to the spring teams, baseball, softball and other athletic endeavors stole the spotlight.

So, as one school year draws to a close, all eyes in the prep sports world in the “Southern Six” begin to focus on the upcoming new session starting in August as well as the new region realignments.

Almost every one of the 24 “Southern Six” sanctioned high schools by the MHSAA were affected in some form or fashion by the bi-annual reclassification process.

Today, we’ll take a look at a league that saw as many changes as any other across the “Southern Six”, which is Region 4-5A.

The region loses two teams and gains two as well, but will have a little less of a “Southern Six” flavor as it has in the past two decades plus as moving forward for the next two seasons only have of the six team loop will feature our area squads.

Region 4-5A:

East Central

Northeast Jones

Vancleave

Wayne County

Purvis

Stone

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Gautier leaves and moves up a classification and now competes in Region 4-6A, leaving the region on paper at least somewhat weaker in football. Also, Laurel departs and moves to Region 3-5A weakening the gridiron strength even more. Those two teams are the past two Class 5A South State champs.

The biggest change on the playing fields will come in baseball, as perennial state power Purvis is moving up in classification from Class 4A to Class 5A and bringing its four state championships over the past two decades with it.

The Tornadoes have been a powerful program winning state titles in 2005, 2006, 2012, and the most recent in 2023. Purvis also played for the crown in 2002, 2007, 2014 and this season under veteran head coach Tony Farlow. Farlow, though, recently retired.

Purvis brings its four state tiles in the past 20 years and joins both East Central and Vancleave to comprise one of the strongest regions in baseball in the state in perhaps any classification. After all, the Hornets have won three state crowns since 2009 and the Bulldogs two in the past eight years.

Laurel’s departure severely dampens boy’s basketball in the loop as well, which will be a good thing for the six teams now in the league.

Ditto in girl’s basketball.

The addition of Purvis, though, as in baseball, strengthens an already potent softball line-up in the region that also includes East Central, which just captured the Class 5A state championship a couple of weeks ago, and Vancleave, which fell to ECHS in the recent Region 4-5A South State championship round.