Page 66 - South Mississippi Living - July, 2018

SPORT & OUTDOORS rising to the top
Vancleave High School Baseball Team
Vancleave High School Volleyball Team
The 2017-18 school year at Vancleave High School had plenty of excitement with the school capturing two state championships — a first in the Jackson County school’s history. The first victory was last fall when the girls volleyball team won the 4A State
Volleyball Championship, and the second was in the spring when the boys baseball team won the 4A State Baseball Championship.
“It was a great year,” Athletic Director Matt Walters
said. “Volleyball is historically good at Vancleave and we’ve been expecting an outstanding season for that team. The baseball team didn’t start off the best in the world. They won the first two games, then lost five in a row but followed by winning 27 out of 29 games.”
Walters explained that the baseball team had a really tough schedule and was learning a new coach’s system. “The team gradually built under Coach Daniel Best, and were playing really well by the end of the year.”
Although the baseball champs graduated 11 seniors, nine of whom played on a regular basis, Walters is optimistic
With Two State Championships, Vancleave Had Big Year
story by Lynn Lofton photos courtesy of Vancleave High School
about next year’s season. “The team has some talent in their younger players even though they will be re- building.”
Girls volleyball coach Haley Chatham is a Vancleave graduate and played volleyball and soccer during her student days. “I anticipate another successful year next season because we lost only one senior,” she says. “We have six returning championship players and a player coming back from an injury who will take that graduate’s spot.”
Chatham, who’s in her sixth year as a coach with four
of those at Vancleave, began practicing with her team last month and will continue through the end of the season in October. A highlight of the summer will be the August 4 Shyla BanAlstine Tournament which honors the late coach who was the first girls volleyball coach at Vancleave.
“The tournament kicks off the season and we usually have eight teams participating,” Chatham said. “We have a real culture of volleyball here and have twenty girls participating in the junior and varsity teams in grades 9 through 12.”
66 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • July 2018
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WE ARE THE
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