By Robert Wilson
Seventeen.
That’s the number of victories Pillow Academy’s Durwin Carpenter needs to become the winningest girls basketball coach in Mississippi history.
He won his 1,229th career game Monday afternoon with an impressive, 63-26 victory over East Rankin Academy in the season opener for both teams in the Heritage Preseason Tournament at Heritage Academy in Columbus.
Carpenter – who has four grandchildren (two in Greenwood and two in Destin, Fla.) – began his 53rd career season and is now 16 wins away from tying Doyle Wolverton, who won 1,245 games from 1975 to 2014 at Leake Academy. Carpenter is also third in the country in wins among active girls basketball coaches.
Carpenter has won 872 games in his 33rd season at Pillow and won 357 games in 20 seasons at Central Holmes Academy. The Grenada Rundle High, Holmes Community College and Delta State alumnus has won four MAIS Overall championships and 10 state titles. His last Overall title was in 2020, his last state title in 2004.
Carpenter – who has four returning starters from last year’s 22-9 team, which reached the Overall quarterfinals – wishes all of his wins this season would come this easy.
Pillow – which only lost leading scorer Izzy Hodges, daughter of Pillow long time assistant coach Mignon Hodges, to graduation – led 13-4 after one quarter, 32-12 at halftime and 39-16 after three quarters against East Rankin Monday. The Lady Mustangs didn’t allow a field goal for the first six and a half minutes.
Senior Mere Austin Wilkey led Pillow with 14 points, 4 assists and 3 steals. Junior Molly Downing had 12 points, senior JonHartley Slater had 11 points and nine rebounds, junior Miriam Jane Rodgers had 7 points, 7 steals and 6 rebounds and senior Madeline Carroll had 6 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. Senior Mary Laine Dysterhouse had five steals.
“I was very proud of the girls and the effort they put out,” Carpenter said. “We played really good defense, especially the first half to give us a big lead. It was a great start to the season and we will get back to work to get ready for our next game.”
Carpenter will go for career win No. 1,230 Thursday when Pillow meets Hartfield Academy at 6:45 p.m. at Heritage.
Don’t look for Carpenter, 75, to slow down any time soon even though he is expected to pass Wolverton at some point this season.
“One of my granddaughters is in the fifth grade and she wants me to coach her,” Carpenter said. “And I want to coach her too. Hopefully, I can.”
While Pillow returned four starters, East Rankin has only two starters back from last year’s team, which finished with a 31-7 record, a MAIS Class 4A runner-up finish and reached the Overall Tournament semifinals.
Southern Miss commitment and 6-foot-2 senior forward Liz Stevens and senior forward Elizabeth Thrash are the two returning starters. Stevens – a member of the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard Preseason Metro Jackson Elite 11 Team – led East Rankin with 6 points, 18 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Thrash, senior Hayden Faulkner and senior Leah Jernigan had four points each.
Starters Holly and Hannah Jackson and Ansley Miller graduated last season.
“Credit Pillow. They wanted it more and whipped us,” said East Rankin coach Brooke Rhodes, who is starting her sixth season as head coach at her alma mater, and has won 106 games in the past three seasons, including a school-record 39 wins and an Overall championship in 2023-2024 when she was named Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Coach of the Year.
