Robert Wilson spent 23 years at The Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News as a sportswriter with more than half of those years covering high school sports, mostly in the Metro Jackson area. He helped choose the All-Metro teams in various sports for more than a decade. Wilson rebirthed this team with the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard All-Metro Jackson Boys and Girls Basketball Teams with 20 players and a Coach and Player of the Year on each team. These are the seventh annual teams. With the help of high school and college coaches, Wilson selected the best players and best coaches for the 2025-2026 season from Hinds, Madison and Rankin Counties. The boys story and teams will be published next week.
By Robert Wilson
Canton High’s Shamira Morton and Madison-Ridgeland Academy’s Stephen Force – the 2026 Tatum and Wade/MSB Girls Basketball Player and Coach of the Year – continued to build on their incredible careers this season.
Morton, a 6-foot-3 senior center and Seton Hall signee, averaged 22.9 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 5.3 blocked shots (third, sixth and third respectively in Mississippi by MaxPreps) and led Canton to a 26-5 record and the MHSAA Class 6A quarterfinals this season despite being double and triple teamed all year and won the Metro Jackson Player of the Year award for the third consecutive season, matching former Germantown star Madison Booker, who is now an All-American and SEC champion at the University of Texas. Booker won Metro Jackson Player of the Year from 2021-2023.
Force led MRA to a 36-5 record and the MAIS Overall Tournament championship, his fourth in his 30-year career, tying him with Pillow Academy’s Durwin Carpenter with the most Overall girls titles among active coaches and fourth most in history.
Morton set school records for most career points, rebounds and blocked shots and is the first Canton girls basketball player in two decades to receive a Division I scholarship offer. She was the MHSAA Class 6A Miss Basketball as a senior and the MHSAA Class 5A Miss Basketball as a junior.
Morton led Canton to a school record 28 victories and back to back state runner-up finishes for the past two seasons as a junior and sophomore. She has career highs of 40 points against Ridgeland this season and Velma Jackson as a junior, 23 rebounds against Ridgeland as a junior and 12 blocked shots against Cleveland Central and Greenville as a sophomore.
Morton has had 75 double doubles and 12 triple doubles and has scored in double figures in all but one game in the past three seasons.
“What a ride it has been having Shamira as a player,” said Canton coach Melissa Word, who has been at Canton for 27 seasons and won a state title in 2013 and two state runners-up finishes in 2024 and 2025. “This season has its share of adversity, especially with injuries that seemed to make its way throughout the whole team. Shamira actually played the last three weeks with a sprained ankle, which eventually aggravated her Achilles. But no excuse. Of course, fans and our opponents didn’t realize it because she continued to give us her all every night. Hopefully, her work ethic and love for the game had rubbed off on the remaining players, who had an opportunity to play with her.”
“I improved on the court with expanding my game from the perimeter, being more patient, finding the gaps in other team’s defense because I got double-teamed a lot last year,” Morton said. “This year, I struggled with finding the gaps more in defenses because most of the teams we faced had a big and basically played us zone to keep two people on me. So after getting advice, I started moving more and finding the gaps. My expectations for myself moving forward is to work harder than I have before. I need to improve my agility, get stronger, and improve my leadership even more from my high school years.”
In addition to Morton’s injury late in the season, her teammates battled through injuries as well (Dekendra Mitchell missed games with ankle injuries, Aquirana Wade missed games with a finger injury and Aeriona Wallace played all season with a torn labrum).
“Shamira is an amazing teammate,” Canton junior Journey Brown said. “She’s always inspiring us and encouraging us to be the best version of ourselves. Her leadership and positivity have made a huge impact on our team.”
“Shamira has been a big influence on our team,” Mitchell said. “She leads with confidence and always encourages us to believes in ourselves. Being her teammate has helped me grow both as a player and as a person.”
“Being able to experience these few years with Shamira has opened my eyes and taught me a lot,” Canton sophomore Kyle Rogers said. “Her leadership, how adamant she is about the game of basketball, and how hard she works on and off the court have made me want to push harder every day.”
In addition to Seton Hall, Morton has Division I offers from Alcorn State, Southern Miss, Memphis, SMU, Charlotte, South Alabama, Belmont, Murray State, Arkansas State, Stony Brook, and North Carolina A&T. She is the first Canton girls basketball player to receive a Division I offer since LaCourtney Ratliff received one from Ole Miss in 2003. Ratliff played on Canton’s state championship team.
Morton averaged 23.6 points (third in scoring average in Mississippi), 14 rebounds (second in rebounding average) and 5.5 blocked shots (second in blocked shots average) last season as a junior. She had 25 double doubles and five triple doubles.
Morton averaged 21.1 points, 13.4 rebounds and 5.2 blocked shots two years ago as a sophomore. She had 22 double doubles and five triple doubles.
She averaged 10.3 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.8 blocked shots and helped Clinton Christian to a 19-15 record and a third-place finish in the MAIS Class 4A state tournament and reached the MAIS Overall Tournament quarterfinals and made fourth team All-Metro Jackson three years ago season as a freshman before transferring to Canton for her sophomore year.
Morton started as an eighth grader at Canton before transferring to Clinton Christian.
Morton is the daughter of Shameka and Dewayne Morton. Shameka played basketball at Gulfport High and Jefferson Davis Junior College, now Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Dewayne played basketball at Canton High and Holmes CC.
Morton has three older brothers, Gregory Moore, Donovan Morton and Malachi Morton, and a younger sister, Daliyah Morton. Gregory graduated from Canton High and Mississippi Gulf Coast CC and will graduate this spring from Tennessee State. Donovan graduated from Germantown High and will graduate this spring from Jackson State. Malachi played basketball at Velma Jackson High and Yazoo County High. Daliyah is in the sixth grade at the Canton Arts and Science.
Force, a Southern Baptist Education Center (now Northpoint Christian School), Northwest Mississippi Community College and Delta State graduate who was inducted into the MAIS Hall of Fame last year, not only is tied for the most Overall girls titles among active coaches and fourth most in school history (behind Jackson Academy’s Jan Sojourner with six and Leake’s Academy’s Doyle Wolverton with five), but he has 813 career victories – second most to Carpenter’s 1,242 among MAIS active coaches – in his outstanding 30-year head coaching career, the last 24 at MRA and the first six at Starkville Academy.
Force played basketball, baseball and ran track and field at SBEC and played basketball at Northwest Mississippi CC. He got his masters degree from Delta State and was a graduate assistant at Delta State under Lloyd Clark.
He also led his team to their fourth consecutive Overall championship game, a rare feat. He defeated Presbyterian Christian School 41-29 for the Overall title in 2023, lost to East Rankin Academy 41-39 in 2024 and to Parklane Academy 45-42 last season before defeating Simpson Academy 37-25 this season. That’s seven points away from four straight Overall championships. Only one girls team, Jackson Prep, won four straight Overall titles (1979-82).
Last year’s Overall loss to Parklane – MRA had a 14-point lead early in the fourth quarter – along with the MAIS’ decision to move girls soccer from the fall to the spring, fueled MRA’s motivation and early season success.
“Moving soccer to the spring developed helped us get more girls ready for basketball,” Force said. “I had about four or five girls who missed a lot of basketball because of soccer, but this year was different. We had more time to prepare and we developed team chemistry and were in better shape. We were ready when the season began.”
It showed. MRA won eight of its first nine games, something that normally doesn’t happen due to slow starts and lack of Force’s team having much practice time together.
“We were able to compete better and beat East Rankin and Leake in our tournament, something we had never done,” Force said. “And we played some more tough teams like Choctaw Central, Biloxi, Neshoba Central and Tishomingo County (all from the MHSAA). It was a loaded schedule and we lost some, but I knew we were ahead of where we usually are.”
MRA continued to play better and lost only one game – a 48-46 decision to Simpson where MRA led by 24 points in the first half – after Christmas and won 20 of its last 21 games, winning the final seven games by an average of 24.3 points per game.
Seniors Presley Hughes and Annie Toler and junior Anna Morgan Anderson were the three returning starters and junior Anna Kate Woodward transferred from Presbyterian Christian where she had started. Also, seniors Gabby Gray and Margaret Ann Hollis both started at times during the season. Also, Force won the Overall title despite having one of his best players, sophomore Anne Wylie Moore, out most of the season with a knee injury. Moore would have been one of MRA’s top players off the bench.
While MRA was close in 2024 and 2025, Force believed this year was going to be different.
“We weren’t experienced enough in the past several years,” Force said. “Presley, Annie and Anna Morgan had played in big games but they were still ninth and 10th graders and 10th and 11th graders and weren’t ready to lead us. This year, Annie and Presley were senior leaders and they were driven. All the girls worked hard, they didn’t want to end the season like we had in 2024 and 2025. They were driven from Day One. It was a relief and a satisfaction when we won Overall this year. I saw the look in their eye going into the Overall championship game. This was going to be different. Young teams have to learn how to lose before you can learn how to win. You have to go through some tough losses and we did. They learned from that. And after that Simpson loss, there was no more taking the foot off the pedal. It was full speed ahead. Winning the Collierville (Tennessee) tournament and beating Collierville in overtime (during Christmas break) set us in the right direction.”
In addition, MRA’s Overall Tournament experience was impressive. Hughes, Toler, Anderson, Woodward had a combined 56 Overall games of experience entering the Overall championship game with Simpson. Hughes, Toler and Anderson were playing in their fourth Overall championship game. Force was coaching in his eighth Overall title game.
Force’s assistants are 10-year assistant Pat Lovitt (who is more well known for his outstanding run of eight straight state cross country state titles at MRA) and first-year assistant Bengie Goff, who has been an assistant at Mississippi Delta CC, Itawamba CC and Pearl River CC.
Force’s parents, Charles and Margaret Force, live in Hernando in North Mississippi and used to come to a lot of games, but now they watch most of them online.
Force has two brothers, Scott and Joe. Scott is retired from the Air Force and lives in Gallatin, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville. Joe is in law enforcement and lives in Hernando, a couple of miles from their parents.
Force and his wife, Laurie, have two girls, Lanie, who played for Force and graduated from MRA in 2018, and Macie, a junior on this year’s team. Force has one granddaughter, Hazel Wilson, who is one and half years old.
“This Overall was special because Macie was on the team,” Force said. “I told her right after the Overall championship, I had dreamed about this since she was born.”
Anderson averaged 13.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals despite battling various injuries throughout the year. She now has 1,699 career points and is within range of breaking the school record of Rivers’ Futral (2,200) next season.
Toler averaged 10 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1.5 blocked shots. Presley averaged 8.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals. Woodward averaged 8.5 points, 4 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2 steals and shot a team-high 81 percent from the free throw line.
“Coach Force believed in from Day 1 last summer,” Toler said. “He is tough on us, but we know he cares about us so we respond to his toughness. We run so many sprints before and during the season that come tournament time we are in such good shape that we could run all day. My favorite thing Coach Force did all season was the day after we lost to Simpson in the South State tournament. Instead of killing us at practice, he told us that we were going on a field trip. We loaded up in the school vans and he takes the whole team to get pedicures. He knew we were all sick about the loss and instead of berating us about it, he knew we need a day to recover. Best move he made all year. We knew then that we weren’t going to lose again.”
“I love competing with my teammates and fortunately I am finishing high school with the best lifelong memories,” Hughes said. “Anyone that’s played for Coach Force will say he pushes you every single day. That constant drive to get better has had a lot to do with our team’s success.”
“Coach Force and I have a different relationship because I’ve started on the varsity team for him some I was in the eighth grade,” Anderson said. “Moving to MRA in the seventh grade, he was one of the first coaches I met and made me feel welcome. He knew I loved the game at an early age. I’ve learned a lot of basketball from him. The importance of tough defense is always expected. He knows I”m aggressive and like to play fast, so he makes sure thats a part of our game. I’ve learned what his expectations are of me, being in the best shape I can be, playing tough defense and staying focused. There are times where I feel like I know what he’s going to say to us even before he says it. This year was very special to me. He kept me focused and didn’t give up on me because I wasn’t 100 percent physically. He knew just when our team needed a boost. He believed that if we kept our eyes on the prize we would be champions on the last day of the season.”
“Coach Force does such a great job with skill development and with x’s and o’s,” said MRA athletic director Ross Healey, who has been named the MAIS Director of Athletics and will start his new position this summer, and was an assistant coach for Force in the first three years Force was at MRA. “Lots of coaches are good at one or the other, but he’s so good at both. He’s also learned over the years when to take his foot off the gas just a little, and most high school girls teams need that. He’s had teams do yoga classes in past years during the season, and this year, he took them for pedicures after a tough loss. That’s growth on his part and its a big reason his teams have played in the past four Overall championship games. He’s got a tough shell, but his wife and family have helped them figure out when to ease up just a little at the right times. That has been the biggest difference in his teams over the past few years.”
Jackson Prep coach Michael McAnally – the 2022 Metro Jackson Girls Basketball Coach of the Year when he led his Lady Patriots to the Overall championship – is long time friends with Force and played each other dozens of times over the past decade. McAnally has won 683 games (470 girls and 213 boys) and two Overall titles, two Overall runner-up finishes and six state titles in 25 seasons, the last 12 at Prep.
“First of all, Stephen is a good man and a great friend,” McAnally said. “While we compete multiple times a year, our friendship trumps the competition and that is a relationship I greatly appreciate. As far as his coaching, his resume speaks for itself. He’s got over 700 wins. He’s got four Overall titles and has played for many more. He’s an MAIS Hall of Famer. That’s a short list with those accolades. Stephen will joke about the times he’s lost in the Overall finals but that speaks to the consistency he has built with that program. He’s simply one of the best to have ever coached in our league. And his team this year was simply dominant. I think they only lost one game to an MAIS opponent this season and they led that game by 20 plus points at one point. He’s certainly deserving of this honor.”
PREVIOUS WINNERS
Metro Jackson Coach of the Year
2025: Jan Sojourner, Jackson Academy
2024: Brooke Rhodes, East Rankin Academy
2023: Ashli Sutton, Callaway
2022: Michael McAnally, Jackson Prep
2021: Josh Zeitz, Clinton Christian Academy
2020: Pearlene Fairley, Clinton
Metro Jackson Player of the Year
2025: Shamira Morton, Canton
2024: Shamira Morton, Canton
2023: Madison Booker, Germantown
2022: Madison Booker, Germantown
2021: Madison Booker, Germantown
2020: Rose Warren, Puckett
