Two highly successful local high school coaches are taking their talents to Central Holmes Christian School in Lexington where they will team up in baseball and softball.
Tony Terry has been the Kosciusko softball coach since 2005 with three state championships. Chris Schuster has been the Ethel baseball coach for 25 years, with six division championships and 21 consecutive winning seasons.
Terry has 422 softball wins, Schuster 395 baseball victories.
Terry will be Schuster's assistant in baseball and Schuster Terry's assistant in softball. They can do both because softball is a fall sport for MAIS schools.
Both have experience in the sport where they will be an assistant. Terry was the head baseball coach at Durant for five years (1995-99) and the pitching coach at Kosciusko before becoming softball coach in 2005. Schuster coached slow pitch softball at Ethel for 10 years.
“It's a great opportunity for me to coach with not only one of the best coaches in Mississippi, but a friend as well,” Schuster said.
Terry is a 1992 Kosciusko graduate from the Sallis community who played baseball and football for the Whippets. He attended Holmes Community College and is a graduate of Mississippi State University with a degree in history.
He started the baseball program at Durant where his teams won 50 games and a division championship.
Terry's softball teams won 4A state championships in 2018, 2021 and 2022 with a 154-31 record since 2018. This year's team repeated as Region 4-4A champion with a 10-0 record, including two wins over state champion West Lauderdale. But West Lauderdale won two one-run games when the Lady Whippets and Lady Knights met in the North State final.
Schuster grew up in Nebraska and graduated in 1995 from the Kearney branch of the University of Nebraska, where he played baseball.
Ethel baseball was undefeated in 5-1A this season for the third consecutive year and reached the South State final before losing to Resurrection Catholic, the defending 1A state champion. It's the third straight year that Resurrection eliminated Ethel. Schuster said the teams might have met in the playoff four consecutive years if the 2020 season had not ended prematurely by Covid. Ethel was 13-1, including a win over Resurrection.
This year's team was a pleasant surprise to Schuster. “I was very happy with their effort. We beat a couple of teams that on paper were probably better than us.” That includes Taylorsville, the team Ethel beat to reach the South State final.
“We won with heart, fundamental defense, good pitching and scoring runs when we could.”
