POPLARVILLE — East Mississippi Community College’s fourth-seeded Lions collected their sec­ond men’s basketball con­ference tournament championship in four years by earning a hard-fought 60-58 victory over nationally 23rd-ranked and No. 2 seed Northeast Mississippi during Thurs­day’s title game of the MACCC Basketball Tour­nament played this week at the Marvin R. White Coliseum on the Pearl River Community College campus.

With four boys and three girls returning that competed in the MH­SASS Class 2A State Track Meet last season, KCHS track coach Keith Cole likes the way things look for his team this sea­son.

First-year Kemper County High School fast-pitch softball coach Freddy Thomas doesn’t have to think long to come up with his team’s strengths. “Pitching and overall team speed,” he said. “That’ 's what we will be relying on.”

Despite finishing 3-12 in his first season as head baseball coach at Kemper County high School, Di­cenzo Miller said he loved the way his team grew at the end of the season.

Guided by first-year head coach Whitney Hawkins, who previously served as an EMCC assistant softball coach during the 2018 sea­son, the 2022 EMCC Lions enter this year’s softball campaign with a versatile 14-player roster consisting of five returners and nine newcomers.

Guided by fourth-year head baseball coach Brett Kimbrel, the 2022 EMCC baseball edition features five position players who each started 18 or more games for last year’s 18-18 team that narrowly missed qualifying for postseason play.

Coach Colt Kilpatrick and the Kemper Academy Rams will be relying on young talent and senior leadership this baseball season as Kilpatrick has high hopes for this team.

On the heels of helping lead the East Mississippi Community College Lions to their second conference tournament champi­onship in four years, EMCC guard Blake Butler has been named the MACCC Men’s Bas­ketball Player of the Week.

The short-handed East Missis­sippi Community College bas­ketball teams split with East Central during Thursday’s MACCC hoops action played on the schools’ respective cam­puses.

Last Wednesday (Feb. 2) was a big day for Kemper County High School athletics as a whole and a half-dozen senior football players in particular.

While there is no doubt that both the Kemper County High School girls and boys basketball teams would like to leave the gym at Philadelphia High School as Region 5-2A Tournament Champions, the most important thing for both teams to do is win their openers in the five-team tourney on Thursday night.

The Kemper Academy Lady Rams finished second in the division this week after dropping a 47-37 contest with Newton County Academy.

The Kemper County Lady Wildcats earned two huge wins this week in the division.

The Kemper Academy Rams ended their regular season on a high note, with a senior night win over Calhoun Academy.

The novel coronavirus and injuries have been hurting the Kemper Academy Rams as of late, as two starters are playing with injuries and three starters are battling COVID-19.

East Mississippi Commu­nity College’s basketball teams completed regular-season sweeps of Holmes by holding on for a 78-76 overtime home win over the Bulldogs in men’s play and posting a decisive 64-46 women’s road victory during Thursday’s MACCC action.