Sports activities column: Vicksburg has a exceptional run of monitor champions
Revealed 10:30 am Monday, Might 29, 2023
Warren Central’s Jonathan Henderson competes within the boys’ excessive soar on the MHSAA Class 6A state monitor and area meet. Henderson received the Class 6A title to proceed a 31-year streak of monitor and area state champions from Warren County. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Put up)
State championships have been laborious to return by for lots of our highschool groups in Warren County.
It’s been 13 years since St. Aloysius received the final baseball state title. Porter’s Chapel (2013) and Vicksburg (2003) are the one boys’ basketball groups to hold banners from this century, and our 4 soccer groups have mixed for one championship sport look prior to now 28 seasons.
There’s one sport, nonetheless, through which our native athletes have put collectively not only a regular stream of postseason success however a exceptional streak of championships.
When Warren Central’s Jonathan Henderson received the Class 6A excessive soar and Vicksburg’s Tyler Henderson the Class 5A triple soar at their respective state meets earlier this month, it prolonged Warren County’s streak of getting at the very least one monitor and area state champion to 31 years.
The final time — aside from 2020, when there was no state meet due to the COVID pandemic — that Warren County got here residence with out a gold medal from the state meets was in 1991.
The streak began with Warren Central’s Jerrold Brooks profitable the Class 5A boys’ 110 meter hurdles in 1992. Ever since then, athletes from all 4 excessive faculties within the River Metropolis haven’t solely received in almost each occasion on the cardboard, they’ve received huge. Numerous the champions did it with record-setting performances.
Warren County athletes maintain six present state data within the Mississippi Excessive Faculty Actions Affiliation and 7 within the Mid-South Affiliation of Impartial Faculties. A type of, St. Aloysius discus thrower Pat Evans’ MHSAA Class 1A report of 158 toes, 11 inches, survived its fortieth consecutive problem this Might. Others set data that have been damaged through the years.
Vicksburg’s Terrell Smith has held the MHSAA general report of 21.03 seconds within the boys’ 200 meters since 2014. One other Warren County sprinter, St. Al’s DeMichael Harris, bettered that mark in 2016 by going 20.87 seconds on the MAIS state meet.
Harris stays the one highschool sprinter in Mississippi to ever run the 200 meters in lower than 21 seconds at a state championship meet. He additionally holds the distinctive distinction of holding state data in each the MHSAA and MAIS.
Harris set the MHSAA Class 1A report within the 100 meters (10.75 seconds) and 400 meters (48.52 seconds) in 2015, when St. Al was a member of that affiliation. The college moved to the MAIS that summer time, and Harris set the MAIS general data in each of these occasions in addition to the 100 meters (10.55 seconds) and 200 meters (20.87) as a senior in 2016.
As we have fun the 2023 Vicksburg Put up All-Warren County monitor and area crew on this weekend’s version, it appears seemingly that the championship streak will proceed for the foreseeable future.
Each Tyler and Jonathan Henderson are juniors and can be contenders once more in 2024. Vicksburg’s Koury Vample received two medals within the hurdles this 12 months and also will be again for his senior 12 months.
Jonathan Henderson, who excessive jumped 6 toes, 10 inches this 12 months, ought to problem the Class 6A report of 6-11 1/2.
The women’ groups for Vicksburg and Warren Central each had a number of underclassmen attain the state meet. St. Al and VHS had eighth-graders get that far.
Soccer will in all probability at all times be Vicksburg’s favourite highschool sport. We’ve had some actually good baseball and basketball groups through the years. However in relation to monitor and area, this metropolis’s custom can rival anybody’s. Let’s see how lengthy we will hold it rolling and cross the baton during one other era.
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Ernest Bowker is the sports activities editor of The Vicksburg Put up. He may be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com
About Ernest Bowker
Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Put up’s sports activities editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Put up’s sports activities workers since 1998, making him one of many longest-tenured reporters within the paper’s 140-year historical past. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his profession, he has received greater than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Affiliation and Related Press for his protection of native sports activities in Vicksburg.
Extra by Ernest