The Mississippi High School Activities Association and the Mississippi Association of Coaches announced on April 29 the recipients of the 2026 Miss Softball and Mr. Baseball awards, which are presented by C Spire.
These awards recognize outstanding high school athletes in softball and baseball across seven classifications in Mississippi. The honors were created in partnership with C Spire in 2023 to celebrate student-athletes’ achievements each year.
According to the announcement, Lucy Cochran from East Union achieved her fourth consecutive Miss Softball title, making her a four-time winner since the award’s inception. Several schools saw repeat success: South Panola’s Grady Beck Wilson earned his school’s third straight player award, following Sadie Bright’s wins in previous years, while Itawamba’s Layla Owens retained her crown from last year.
The list of winners by classification includes Addison Collum (West Union) for Class 1A Miss Softball and Jaxon Herod (West Union) for Class 1A Mr. Baseball; Lucy Cochran (East Union) for Class 2A Miss Softball and Cade Culpepper (Clarkdale) for Class 2A Mr. Baseball; Caliann Mitchell (Kossuth) for Class 3A Miss Softball and Kolby Stringer (West Marion) for Class 3A Mr. Baseball; Layla Owens (Itawamba) for Class 4A Miss Softball and Wyatt McDaniels (Mooreville) for Class 4A Mr. Baseball; Ella Robertson (Sumrall) for Class 5A Miss Softball and Drew Davis (Sumrall) for Class 5A Mr. Baseball; Grady Beck Wilson (South Panola) for Class 6A Miss Softball and Clay Tolbert (West Jones) for Class 6A Mr. Baseball; Presley Merkich (Germantown) for Class 7A Miss Softball and EJ Booth (Oak Grove) for Class 7A Mr. Baseball.
While there were no repeat individual winners among this year’s “Mr. Baseball” honorees, West Union returned as a winning school after Jon Grey Morrisson won last year’s award, as did Mooreville with Brody Thompson previously recognized when it was classified as a class three school.
All honorees will be celebrated at an awards ceremony on May 6 at the MHSAA Conference Center, with additional recognition during state championship events later in May.
