This MS Coast three-time state champion battled through injury to earn prestigious award

Biloxi High School’s Julie Segroves has been named the Mississippi track and field Gatorade Player of the Year.

Segroves won the 7A pole vaulting state championship with a 13’4 vault at the state meet in Pearl. It was the rising senior’s third consecutive state title.

“It feels very rewarding,” Segroves said of earning the honor from Gatorade. “I actually tried to win it last year, but I couldn’t get it, so me being able to get this award this year, it feels very fulfilling in my pole career.”

And she did it despite battling a mid-season injury to her foot. A bruised heel prevented her from working out for a month, but she still won nine of 10 meets. Her only loss was a second-place finish in a California meet featuring some of the top vaulters in the country.

Segroves’ height in the spring meet ranked 18th nationally, though it came a few inches short of her state record 13’8 vault in her sophomore season — a record she originally snagged for herself in eighth grade and has personally reset eight different times since.

Her goal in her final season is to up her personal best and cross the 14-foot mark, while navigating the process of being recruited by nearly a dozen Division I schools.

“It’s wonderful,” her father Jim Segroves said. “She’s been working hard ever since the second grade and after all the years of work it’s really paying off and I’m just thrilled about it. She owns every record there is to have in Mississippi ... And this is kind of like the icing on the cake.”

She is the first Mississippi Coast winner of the honor since Long Beach’s Brooklyn Biancamano in 2019-20. And she’s not just a track and field star — she excels in the classroom, as well. Segroves maintains an A-plus grade average and has done volunteer work for the Westbrook Vault Club and the BHS Campus Security Council.