NATCHEZ — Roy Garcia, Cathedral’s long-time atheltic director, knows there’s nothing quite like going out with a bang. This season, his Green Wave athletes helped him achieve just that with an improved all-around athletics season.

Recently the Clarion Ledger released their All Sports Award, and Cathedral ranked fourth among 1A schools — an improvement over their 10th place finish a year ago.

“It’s great because we’re getting more competitive and the kids are doing better and it’s more of an all-around unification of all the sports,” Garica said. “All the teams seem like they’re taking turns (being among the best in the classification).”

Overall, Cathedral’s tennis and golf teams ranked highest, with scores of 24 and 23 respectively, while the baseball team finished third with a score of 22.5.

Garcia attributes the Green Wave’s success in part to having many athletes play multiple sports, and says playing multiple sports helps kids develop and prepare them for life.

“My philosophy is if the kids get the opportunity to play in different sports they’ll have more experience in different things,” Garcia said. “If you just play one or two sports, that handicaps you a little bit.”

One reason the Green Wave jumped from 10th to fourth was the improvement of their boy’s basketball program.

Garcia even went as far as to say Peter Arnold’s 26-6 Green Wave boy’s team was “undoubtedly” the best in the school’s history.

“Especially the boy’s team because they had the seniors and this was the climax season,” Garcia said. “They went as far as they could, it was great to see them work as a unit.”

Garcia accredited Arnold relationship with the players and character for the team’s success.

“His relationship with the kids is unbelievable,” Garcia said. “They hadn’t had a technical foul in two years — he’s a sportsman from the word go.”

Both Henry Harris, Cathedral’s tennis coach, and Craig Beesley, the football and baseball head coach, were excited to help Garcia retire with the program among the elite schools in the state.

“We hate to see Coach Garcia leave — he’s been such a mainstay at Cathedral,” Beesley said. “We wanted to win for ourselves, but we also wanted to win for Coach Garcia.”

Harris echoed his fellow coach’s sentiments.

“For him being there so long it’s very special to me,” Harris said. “Letting him go out on a good note, that’s great.”

Franklin County also was among the top schools in 3A, tying for 4th.