The 2024-25 high school sports season has finally arrived.
North Carolina High School Athletic Association member schools held their first official practices for the fall sports season Wednesday.
Chatham County is gearing up for the second straight year of its four traditional high schools — Seaforth, Northwood, Chatham Central and Jordan-Matthews — competing against each other in the same conference (Mid-Carolina 1A/2A), which will likely be for the last time in the coming years with NCHSAA realignment coming for the 2025-26 season.
With Chatham Charter and Woods Charter also making noise in the Central Tar Heel 1A conference, Chatham County enjoyed a highly entertaining sports season last year with impressive individual performances, heated rivalries, numerous state contenders and significant milestones being reached.
But now, it’s time to do it all over again, this time with a different story. A good mix of familiar and new faces will enter the competition this year, shaking up what’s known and expected of Chatham County’s sports landscape. Here’s a look at what storylines to look out for as a new year gets underway:
New coaches establish themselves
For the football season, Dalton Brown and Kermit Carter will take over their alma maters of Northwood and Jordan-Matthews, respectively. Both programs are in completely different spots in terms of recent success, but both will share a common goal on building on the year before.
In Jordan-Matthews’ case, the Jets are looking to take small steps towards the winning days of the past, which could play out as more competitive performances and one to two more wins than last season’s 2-8 campaign.
For Brown and the Chargers, it won’t be as easy replicating last year’s seven-win season and playoff appearance, especially without key player Gus Ritchey. However, there’s still plenty of offensive firepower, including receivers Isaiah Blair and Antoine Brewington and running back Robert Tripp, that can lead Northwood back to the postseason.
No other new head coach in the county may be under a bigger spotlight than John Berry of Seaforth boys’ basketball, though. Despite having a talented roster, the Hawks didn’t have the best start to the post-Jarin Stevenson era last year and failed to make the playoffs. Berry was hired after the resignation of Leo Brunelli, and he has now put the pressure on himself to get the team to show improvement this season.
Seaforth baseball’s next head coach will also be an interesting storyline to watch as the program’s next leader will inherit a young, but talented and experienced team that made a deep playoff run with mostly underclassmen in 2024.
The best in boys’ basketball post-Drake Powell?
With former Northwood basketball star Drake Powell moving on to the next level, there’s now room for a new top dog to take the title of “the best in the county.”
Northwood has a strong chance of maintaining their hold over the county on the team level, mainly because it’ll have two of the county’s best on the individual level in Cam Fowler and Chad Graves.
Other players in the running for the county’s top player are Chatham Central’s Reid Albright and Brennen Oldham and Seaforth’s Nate Emerson. With transfers also a possibility, there may even be a surprise player in the mix.
New shortstops at Jordan-Matthews
The 2024 Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference baseball and softball players of the year, shortstops Ian McMillan and Logan Gunter, played their last season in Jets uniforms in the spring.
This coming season, both Jordan-Matthews’ baseball and softball teams will have to replace their production at the plate and their defensive impact, especially as the softball team tries to build on its deep playoff run in 2024.
Both teams already have solid pieces that can step into larger playing and leadership roles which will be crucial, especially for the baseball team which wants to improve from an underwhelming season.
Seaforth going for back-to-back Wells Fargo Cup titles?
Seaforth is bringing back many of its exceptional athletes from across every sports season this year. The Hawks will return state-title contenders and state champions in girls’ basketball, volleyball, boys’ and girls’ wrestling, golf, swimming and all of the running sports, setting them up for a shot at a second consecutive 2A Wells Fargo Cup title.
The Hawks won 13 individual and team state titles last season, and with many individual athletes hoping to repeat or add on to the state championship total, it’ll be interesting to see if Seaforth can dominate the Wells Fargo Cup standings even more than it did in the 2023-24 season.