To borrow from the Southeastern Conference: Basketball just means more in extreme northeast Mississippi, more commonly known as Hill Country. Never was that more evident than Friday morning at Mississippi Coliseum. In a battle of tiny town titans, the Biggersville girls came from behind to defeat Thrasher 54-47 for the Class 1A state championship in a fiercely contested, well-coached and well-played game.

When the final horn sounded, the basketball court became a sea of emotion, tears flowing seemingly everywhere: tears of joy, tears of despair. As much as the outcome meant – one way or the other to so many folks – it just had to mean more to one family. They would be the Littles of Biggersville.

Cliff Little is the Biggersville head coach. Jana Little, his wife, is an assistant coach. Lainey Jackson Little, their daughter, is a junior guard on the team. Eighteen years ago Cliff and Jana were a young married couple teaching at East Webster in Maben. Cliff was an assistant basketball coach, Jana the team’s scorekeeper. The team qualified for the State Tournament in Jackson, but Jana, six months pregnant, was diagnosed with toxemia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) and stayed home.

On March 1, 2007, Jana gave birth to a daughter, who weighed one pound, 15 ounces. “She would have fit in the palm of my hand,” Cliff Little says. 

They named her Lainey Jackson, the middle name from the name of the place they had planned to be the night Lainey Jack, as they call her, was born. The initial prognosis was grim: She might make it, she might not. Lainey Jack spent the first six weeks of her life in the hospital, mostly in an incubator. The tiny girl showed then what the folks in Biggersville have come to know – that she was a fighter.

Let’s move ahead 17 years to this time last year. The Biggersville girls with Lainey Jack as their second leading scorer and playmaker made it to the State championship semifinals against Lumberton, only to lose by a single point on two late free throws.

Cliff Little also coaches the Biggersville boys, who went on to win the 2024 state championship. So he wasn’t back in Biggersville the day after his girls were eliminated. He wasn’t in the Biggersville gym when his girls took the floor for their first practice in preparation for what occurred Friday morning at Mississippi Coliseum.. The family have rarely missed a day together since.

They certainly didn’t miss on the eighth day of May last year when, during a players-only practice, Lainey Jack went down with a horrible injury to her right knee. A torn ACL that required surgery and months and months of strenuous rehab.

How strenuous? When his daughter first began her rehab at home, Cliff would make sure a garbage can was nearby for when she would need to vomit, which was all too often. But she was determined and kept at it, day after day. We may assume that when you come into this world weighing 31 ounces, such grit comes naturally.

Said Cliff Little, “I told her back during all that rehab that when we won the state championship I was going to have the date – May 8th – inscribed on her ring.”

Lainey Jack was released to play again in December, just seven months after surgery. She is still working to recover the quickness and cutting ability she possessed prior to the injury, but it’s coming.

She was in the starting lineup Friday, a heavy brace on that right knee.. One minute into the game, she swished a 22-foot three-pointer to give Biggersville its first lead. That would be her only basket, but she scrapped and battled throughout. And, afterward, she was in the middle of the celebration, holding the cherished Gold Ball trophy.

“I worked really hard to come back, and that’s what makes this so special,” she said, before deflecting praise to her teammates, 15-year-old Sadiya Hill in particular. Hill scored 24 points to lead the Lions, while Jaylee Stafford scored 19 and pulled down 11 rebounds despite playing much of the fourth quarter with four fouls.

Stafford and Little are juniors. The gifted Hill is just a sophomore and her talented older sister, K’yana Hill is another junior. So there’s a good chance Biggersville will be back again next year. No telling how many championships the 46-year-old Cliff Little will win before he’s done. This makes seven state championships – five boys, two girls – in all for Little.

“They are all special,” Little said when asked where this latest championship ranks. “They’re all special, but this one, considering the circumstances… this one’s extra special.”

Put it this way: There will be an 18th birthday party, combined with a state championship celebration, in Biggersville Saturday.  

The post The Littles will have a big time Saturday in Biggersville appeared first on Mississippi Today.