By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

BILOXI — Biloxi’s Julie Segroves will go down as one of the top field performers in high school track and field in the annals of the state of Mississippi.

The Lady Indian senior standout just wrapped up her career by being selected as the Gatorade Mississippi girls track and field player of the year for the 2024-25 season.

It was the second year in a row that she earned that prestigious honor. Segroves was also the first girl’s track and field athlete to be chosen for the award from Biloxi High School.

The 5-foot-2 senior won the Class 7A pole vault state title for the second straight season after winning the Class A state title the previous two seasons giving her four state titles in four straight seasons in that event. She recorded a 13-foot jump and helped the Lady Indians place sixth as a team in the largest classification in the state. Segroves’ best attempt during her senior year came in the South State Championships, where she produced a 13-5 jump, which ranked No. 11 nationally among high school athletes.

The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Segroves as Mississippi’s best high school girls track & field athlete.

“She couldn’t quite get back to the record-setting heights she cleared as an underclassman, but Segroves graduates as the state’s best ever in the pole vault, both indoors and outdoors,” Rich Gonzalez, editor of PrepCalTrack.com, said in a press release. “She’ll benefit from a great Mountain West vaulting program at Air Force.”

Segroves, the Air Force signee, leaves Biloxi as the Mississippi high school pole vault record-holder in both outdoors (13-8, 2023) and indoors (13-2, 2022).

As a junior, she won the MHSAA Class 7A state championship, clearing 13-4 to help the Indians finish fifth. Segroves set the state record in the event two years ago with a clearance of 13-8. Her title-winning height as a junior ranked tied for 18th nationally among high school girls nationally.

Segroves joins recent Gatorade Mississippi girls track and field athletes of the year Heidi Hudson (2023, Sumrall), Kennedi Sanders (2022 and 2021, Madison Ridgeland Academy) and Brooklyn Biancamano (2020, Long Beach).

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.
The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.