By Curtis Rockwell/Sports Director

GULFPORT — It appears that West Harrison High will have a new baseball head coach in place early next week.

And, according to sources close to the situation, the new leader of the Hurricanes will be Taylor Lafontaine, a longtime assistant coach at several stops on the Mississippi Gulf Coast over the past decade plus.

Lafontaine has been offered the job and accepted it, again, according to sources, and should be approved Monday night at the next meeting of the Harrison County School District School Board.

He will be just the third WHHS head baseball coach in the history of the program.

Lafontaine’s only prior experience as a head coach came in one season at Bay High in 2015, after he was elevated from his assistant coach spot to the head coach’s post in January of that same year.

The Tigers went 2-20 that season, including beating Moss Point in the final two games of the season after starting 0-20. He was replaced the next season by Kevin Burdine.

Most recently, Lafontaine he was an assistant coach at Hancock High two seasons ago, as then Hawks head coach Anthony DeWitt wound down his career.

Lafontaine has also been an assistant at Pass Christian and at his alma mater St. Stanislaus over the past decade or so.

He is set to replace veteran head coach David Marsland at the helm of the Hurricanes, after Marsland retired after 14 seasons in that capacity last month.

Marsland led the Hurricanes to right at 170 wins in 13 full seasons, excluding the Covid-shortened 2020 campaign. The best season was a 23-9 mark in 2019, still a program record for wins in a single campaign.
The Hurricanes also went 21-8 in 2016 and 20-11 in 2017, and that four year stretch between 2016-2019 when Marsland’s squads went 80-41 is bay far the best span in school history.
He came to WHHS as just the second head baseball coach ever in program history, replacing Craig Weinberg, who led the first three Hurricane baseball teams.