The 4A high school football state champion Poplarville Hornets honored as Grand Marshall during annual Christmas parade

Last weekend the Poplarville Hornets high school football team made school history by winning their first-ever 4A state championship. On Friday, they were celebrated by their community during Poplarville’s annual Christmas parade.

Just six short days ago the Poplarville Hornets made school history by winning their first-ever football state championship with a one point victory over Louisville. While catchup up with coach Jay Beech and players before the parade began on Friday, they told me things are only now starting to set in.

“It hasn’t set in all the way I don’t think,” head coach Jay Beech said. “The whole town and whole community has been really excited and it is hard to get the smiles off of our faces. It was just a great day and a great event for our community. The game was exciting until the very last minute. All of that culminated to a great event for the whole town.”

“It’s starting to,” quarterback Sydney Blackmon said. “It’s awesome to be able to get to do something that not a lot of people get to do. A lot of kids dream to be able to do it and a bunch of people fell short trying to do. It’s pretty awesome.”

While things may have not settled in just yet, there is one theme to Poplarville football. Community.

“I think we are kind of one,” Beech said. “The football team and the community we kind of feed of each other. We had 11 one possession victories this year and I think we may have loss one of those without that.”

“Man, the community means everything,” Keys said. “We had so many people they false started like two times. It’s amazing have the fans support. It’s great, man.”

On Friday the community and the football team came together one more time. Not on a football field, but for the annual Poplarville Christmas parade. The Hornets football team was honored as the Grand Marshalls of the parade where they were able to show off their state championship medals with the community that supported them the entire way.

“It’s just a proud moment for us, a really exciting moment,” Beech said. “It would be hard to duplicate the excitement we had last Saturday and tonight we get to celebrate it a little bit in the Christmas parade.”

“It’s amazing,” Keys said. “Everybody coming out just for us – it’s big time.”