Northside baseball looking to build upon last season’s success, state title appearance

Published 5:19 pm Sunday, February 23, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

YEATESVILLE, N.C. — Parker Boyd has had to get creative over the past two weeks.

His Northside High School baseball team — like so many other spring sports teams — has had to deal with a lot of rain last week and wintry weather this week. With the season starting (weather permitting) on Tuesday at South Central High School, he and his team have tried to do everything they can to get ready for the start of the season until the field dries out.

The Panthers got in a home scrimmage on Tuesday against Currituck but had a road trip scrimmage at Washington High School canceled due to the ice, freezing rain and sleet in the area. It’s a tough course to get ready for a season where Northside will try to build upon a magical run they had in the state playoffs last season.

Northside won the Coastal Plains Conference season and make a remarkable state playoff run that took them to the Class 1A title series. The Panthers fell short in their quest to win it all, dropping two games in a best-of-3 series with Uwharrie Charter Academy. Northside finished the season 22-8 with a talented squad of seniors more than proving their worth.

This year’s squad has one senior, Ashton Willard. However, a good mix of talent and youth has Boyd optimistic they can get off to a good start, play well in the CPC and maybe capture lightning in a bottle again.

“It’s just the weather has been terrible,” Boyd said before Tuesday’s scrimmage. “You got that week of snow (in January) that killed us and this one’s about to kill us. And then we had a week there where we got about 10 inches of rain.”

Boyd said players like junior first baseman Will Taylor, sophomore shortstop Trenton Allen and junior catcher Holden Boykin — who is battling an injury — have done their part to make the start of the season easier to tackle with the weather woes.

“I’m proud of Ashton and Trenton and Will and Holden because they’ve really stepped up into that leader position where last year they had some dudes in front of them that went ahead and took it on,” Boyd said. “And now they’ve kind of done the same thing, which made coaching a lot easier.”

Willard said while last year was memorable, they are hoping to make more memories this season.

“Last year, we really worked hard,” Willard said. “We had great leadership to help us through the year. We all just put in the effort at practice to get through and make it stay to play 100% every game and never gave up when we got there.

“And this year is hoping what I’m trying to lead these boys to do this year, make it back to state.”

Taylor agrees with Willard but remains optimistic, despite the wrinkles the weather has thrown their way.

“Yes, we’re definitely a younger team, but we do have a little bit of experience,” Taylor said. “I think we’ll do good this year. Trying to be more of a leader this year and meet those expectations we met last year.”

Northside’s scrimmage on Tuesday was both good and bad in the results it produced with offense, defense and pitching. It does look like it will be the only chance the Panthers have to work out the kinks against a real opponent before the games start to count.

“I mean, last year, since we made it to states, I feel like we got more pressure since we won the conference,” Allen said. “I think it’s just a lot more pressure since all the kids from last year are back and we want to be successful this season, too.”

Boyd said the team has experience and has worked together at other baseball levels, too. Now, it’s just all about putting the best team on the field and seeing what happens.

Sort of like last season.

“Really, we’re looking to figure out who’s gonna fit into our lineup,” Boyd said. “Because these young guys, they’ve played baseball long enough. I’m not majorly concerned with them making a whole lot of errors.

“We just gotta find the nine best bats. And that’s kind of what we’re using this (scrimmage with Currituck) as. The guys that we think might play are gonna be the ones that get at-bats.”

More Sports

NCHSAA sends questionnaire to schools about flag football

High 5, Washington’s Jamie Perez: Senior a big part of Pam Pack girls’ soccer team

Panthers top Manteo in Keech’s return to field

NCHSAA finalizes realignment plans for 2025-29

Print Article

SportsPlus

  • Polls

    Which payment methods should be used for admission to high school sporting events?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...