High School Sports: Best in the State (9/4/24)

By JASON PEEVYHOUSE

Sports Editor

After a season that capped off a three-year odyssey as a six-win team to become state champions, Dyersburg High School’s Tim Strayhorn has been named the TSSAA Girls Basketball Coach of the Year for the 2023-24 season.

Strayhorn took over the program with less than a starting lineup returning to the roster in May 2021. After winning just six games in her first season as a high school head coach, Strayhorn and the Lady Trojans finished as the District 13-3A runner-up and then won the District 7-3A Tournament, subsequently booking Dyersburg’s ticket to the state tournament for the first time in a decade.

However, it was last season that the Lady Trojans reached the promised land. Dyersburg swept the regular season and finished its schedule with a 22-4 record. In the postseason, the Lady Trojans were even more dominant, sweeping the district and regional tournaments before dominating Covington in the Class 3A Sectional Round.

This marked Dyersburg’s first consecutive appearance in the state tournament after more than 30 years.

After being eliminated in the first round the previous year at Murfreesboro, Dyersburg defeated defending state champion Jackson South Side by a dozen points and then inflicted a 23-point upset on Cocke County to advance to the TSSAA Class 3A State Championship Game for the first time since 2005. The Lady Trojans’ season continued with a packed house at MTSU and a 41-39 victory over Upperman in the finals.

Before winning the highest honor a girls basketball coach can win in the TSSAA, Strayhorn was named the District 13-3A Coach of the Year and Dyersburg High School’s State Gazette Coach of the Year.