PHOTOS SUBMITTED The Daily Leader's 2025 All-Area Softball Coach of the Year, Lisa Covington at Brookhaven Academy.

As you might know, softball programs in the MAIS start their season in the heat of Mississippi’s summer.

Brookhaven Academy head coach Lisa Covington and her assistant Scott Poole are gearing up for practices in June that’ll finish with games in late July.

Before turning the page to the 2025-2026 school year, we’ve got to turn back to the 2024 softball season for the Cougars, which ended with Covington and her squad hoisting the MAIS 5A State Championship trophy after a thrilling title series against their rivals from Parklane Academy.

For that championship level success, Covington has been named the 2025 Daily Leader All-Area Softball Coach of the Year.

Brookhaven Academy finished the season with a robust 30-5 overall record. Covington is a combined 85-22-2 in the three years since she moved up to head coach after previously assisting Becky Flowers.

The 2024 championship season will be remembered for the battles between BA and Parklane.

Brookhaven beat the Pioneers 4-2 in the first meeting, before Parklane returned the favor with a 3-1 win at BA.

Parklane then took the MAIS 5A South State Tournament by beating Brookhaven twice, 2-0 and 13-3.

Whatever momentum the Pioneers held at that moment fully shifted to the Cougars in the state tournament a week later.

BA booked a spot in the best of three championship series by beating Parklane 1-0 in bracket play.

On that day, senior pitcher Ann Elise Duncan struck out nine and gave up just one hit against a Parklane roster loaded with talent. The lone run of the game came when Miriam Wallace laced a ground ball for the Cougars that was played for an error, which scored Morgan Chemin from third.

The Cougars kept their paws on the gas when the grudge match resumed in the championship series.

BA won 3-2 to open the series on its home field and then closed out the championship run with a 9-6 win in Pike County.

Amongst the players who are lost to graduation are three college softball signees Duncan (Pearl River CC), Bailey Parks (Copiah-Lincoln CC), Annaston Poole (Copiah-Lincoln CC), and Covington’s daughter Kensy, herself an All-State selection.

You’ll find the cupboard far from bare when the Cougars begin the 2025 regular season in a couple months though, expect Covington, Poole, and their team to be among the MAIS 5A favorites again in 2025.