Alabama’s Grayson Morris and Tucker Smith completed a wire-to-wire win this past weekend to secure victory in the Mossy Oak Bassmaster High School National Championship presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors, earning a $4,500 scholarship towards their college education.
A statement from the prestigious tournament added that this win made for back-to-back titles for the duo and their boat captain/coach, J.T. Russell. This is the first time in history that a high school team has won in consecutive years.
Morris and Smith are both students at Birmingham’s Briarwood Christian School.
Morris and Smith finished the three-day tournament with a total weight of 50 pounds, 1 ounce, beating the second place finishers by 1 pound, 9 ounces.
“We were ecstatic after winning last year’s National Championship, but to do it two years in a row was unbelievable to all of us,” Russell said. “We were confident coming into this year’s event, but to pull it off two years in a row and for it to come down to the wire like it did was amazing. We caught our last keeper with only 15 minutes left and had we not caught that fish, we wouldn’t have won.”
Morris will continue his career this fall as a freshman for the University of Montevallo Fishing Team, where Russell is now a senior angler.
Smith is going into his senior year at Briarwood Christian.
Morris and Smith earned an additional $875 in scholarship funds for having the “Big Bag” of the tournament.
“We weren’t going to leave anything out there,” Smith said. “If we were going to finish second, we weren’t going down without a fight.”
RELATED: South Alabama boys win Bassmaster Junior Championship
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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