High 5, Washington’s Avery Thomas: Senior excels at soccer along with tennis, basketball, school

Published 10:34 pm Monday, April 14, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Avery Thomas uses her time wisely. She has to, in fact.

When she’s not playing tennis in the fall, she’s celebrating her Homecoming Queen victory. Then, in the winter, it’s on to participating in basketball and other activities before switching over to soccer in the spring. Inbetween, there’s things like getting ready for prom, graduation and all the other things a senior has to do.

Whew!

We spoke with Thomas about her busy schedule, how she manages it all and having fun along the way during a competitive soccer season.

1. So tennis, basketball, soccer … how do you manage everything? Plus the school life, homecoming queen, everything in between, how do you do it all?

“Honestly, I just try to keep a balance and have fun in everything I do. Staying involved kind of keeps me busy and keeping in a good headspace. And I just love being around every type of person we have at school and influencing people in the most ways I can, in the best way I can.”

2. Is there a particular sport you like the most?

They’re all different. There’s so many different aspects in each sport. I mean, tennis is more me and then me and my doubles partner. And then basketball is more of a team sport. We’re very young in basketball, I was the only senior. So it’s just a lot different.

“Where here, we have me and a couple other leaders that are seniors, as well as people that grew up playing soccer. So we’re able to work as a team and everybody knows the fundamentals. So it’s fun to see the different aspects of each sport, with so many different people on the field.”

3. Describe your position or what you do because you were playing so much of the defense early on. And then you were kind of in the front half, the second half.

“Honestly, I do whatever Coach Kendall Cox tells me. I try to just read the field. Main goal, I usually start, when we play hard teams, she usually keeps me back the majority so that we don’t allow a score.

“And really, I play a big role in our talking and making sure everybody’s communicating with everybody and everybody knows where we are in the field. But when I push up, I just like to play aggressive and, hopefully, get a point on the board, but also use everyone around me.”

4. Tell me about this game (with Farmville Central). It seemed like it was kind of a tough challenge, but you were pushing and so aggressive on that side.

“Honestly, we have so many leaders this year, everybody is uplifting. There’s not one negative person on this team. And if someone’s down, we lift them back up and we go with it.

“If somebody does make a mistake, it’s OK. I mean, you gotta keep rolling and keep playing. But this game, we’ve had a lot of competition with Farmville in the past. They’ve always been the team that we’re going against for the conference championship. And they play very aggressive, so we just look to put in that same effort and do better and win.”

5. Final question. You are through the first half of the conference season. How is the first half, more or less, of the season going? And how do you see it progressing into the second half of the season?

“Yeah, I’m confident everybody comes to play and practice, ready to practice. The effort’s there, we keep working on it every day. And when some people are down, we have a great set of captains who just lift everybody up.”

More Sports

Beasts of the East: Pam Pack top Jaguars, take sole possession of first in EPC

Lessons learned from Southside’s soccer loss to Lejeune

P.S. Jones places third, recognizes 8th graders; new conference names set

Shifts in scheduling: Beaufort County baseball, softball teams play their closest rivals twice, very early in season

Print Article

SportsPlus

  • Polls

    What is the most viable option for S.W. Snowden Elementary School?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...