By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HANCOCK — Last season, for just the second time in school history and the first time in 23 years, the football team at Hancock High qualified for the state playoffs for the third straight campaign.

Unfortunately, that feat wasn’t enough for then Hawks head coach Neil Lollar to keep his job.

Hancock ended up just 3-9 last year, but earned the fourth and final seed for playoff purposes in Region 4-6A. But a a 48-14 loss to home-standing Hattiesburg in the opening round of the Class 6A South State playoffs wound up being Lollar’s last game at HHS, as he was out of a job less than a week later.

This season, Mikey King takes over as the new head football coach at Hancock. King comes to the Hawks after serving in the same post at Greene County over the past four seasons, going 21-20 overall and 1-3 in the Class 4A South State playoffs. The Wildcats went 8-1 last year and captured the Region 8-4A title, before being upset by visiting Quitman 34-28 in the opening round of the playoffs.

His recent tenure marked King’s second stint as the leader in Leakesville, after a 28-10 mark from 2017-2019 in which the Wildcats went 3-3 in the Class 4A South State playoffs. King left Leakesville for one season to become the offensive coordinator on head coach Seth Smith’s first squad at Pearl River Community College before returning to Greene County the following year.

Hancock is just 4-13 over its past 17 games since starting the 2023 season off at an historic 7-0. That season also included an opening round loss in the postseason.

In Leakesville last season, King employed a run and gun offensive attack that featured his son Coby at quarterback. All the younger King did in his senior campaign was throw for over almost 3,000 Yards and 38 touchdowns last year while also running for right at 700 yards and 15 more scores.

For his efforts he was named not only Offensive Most Vauluable Player on the Class 4A -All State First Team but he garnered “Class 4A Mr. Football” in the state as well.

Luckily, for the elder King, he has yet another stalwart senior signal-caller at his disposal again this year in Kaison Koenenn.

Koenenn enters his final season at HHS fresh off a second straight trip to the prestigious Manning Passing Academy. Last year, he assumed the helm of the Hawks for his first season as QB1 and went on to account for almost 2,400 total yards last year and 23 touchdowns.

The versatile 6-foot-3, 185-pounder started all 12 games, completing 124-of-208 passes (right at 60%) with six scores and just one interception while he also picked up 1,270 yards on the ground with 15 touchdowns on 208 carries.

Another player that the Hawks will count upon heavily this season is sophomore running back/linebacker Coleton Hopgood. He is the second leading returning rusher behind Koenenn for HHS as well as one of the top returning tacklers after he tallied 49 total tackles as just a freshman last year.

He’ll be joined on the defensive side of the ball by fellow linebacker Omar Zelaya, a junior that registered 52 total stops last year.

King will lead Hancock forward on the gridiron for the Hawks as they once again wage into the Region 4-6A wars for the third straight season, although there are two changes in the composition of the revamped league.

One of the notable items when the new league configurations were announced was that George County would be sent back “north” to compete in Region 3-6A once again.

That meant that Pearl River Central would be enjoying old home week as the Blue Devils will replace the Rebels in the loop.

Also, however, Gautier is moving up a classification and into Class 6A for the first time ever. In addition, Region 4-6A is losing West Harrison which is moving up to Class 7A for the first time ever as well.

The Hawks will now face an all “Southern Six’ slate this season, with five pre-region games and a like number of league contests.

The Mikey King era at Hancock High kicks off on Friday, Aug. 29th at home on Brett Favre Field when Stone comes calling.