Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Note: This is the third in a series of stories where we talk to each high school athletic director in Beaufort County. We asked them about this season, the offseason, what they are looking forward to for the start of the fall season and more.

CHOCOWINITY, N.C. — The foundation is being laid for success on several different levels for Southside High School athletics.

Teams made the state playoffs in several sports, with the school year still seeing spring sports success. There’s always room for improvement, too, and Seahawks Athletic Director Andrea Quinerly certainly sees his teams, coaches and athletes striving to do just that.

We spoke with Quinerly about those things and more and got his thoughts on how things went this season and what he’s looking forward to seeing with the next school year.

So let’s start with the good things you saw from this season. What stands out to you as we come upon the completion of this school year?

“Well, basically, I thought it was a great year. I thought our school spirit had gotten a lot better. And that was something we had that was on our radar, to try to improve our school spirit. It got better. We had winning records in boys’ soccer and girls’ tennis, with Eliza Jones going undefeated in the regular season.

“Our volleyball team improved record-wise and everything. And of course, Misty Mooring got coach of the year, which was evidence of how much better we’ve gotten in that area. Our girls’ basketball had a winning record. We had the introduction of girls’ flag football, which was a hit and I could see it going forward. There’s a lot of buzz about that now.”

So what stands out in areas of improvement going into the new school year?

“To have a great year at that, we need to be ejection-free. And that’s something we want to get back to. The North Carolina High School Athletic Association is big on that, and so am I.”

Any capital projects or anything else that you’re working on or would like to see addressed soon?

“This past season, we’ve gotten a new sound system for baseball and softball. And hopefully, we’re going to get that for the football and soccer press box this year. Other than that, we have done a little work with our facilities overall. We’re working on our game fields, just trying to make it the best-looking field we can. We’re working on our driveways, got rocks put down. So we’re just trying to, overall, beautify our whole campus athletic facilities.”

And what’s the summer like? I know you’ve got your football camp, there’s a soccer camp also.

“First of all, the summer is always busy. And of course, we’re going to have football, volleyball, boys’ soccer, and tennis, all having practices all summer. And of course, like you mentioned, we’re going to have youth camps of soccer, volleyball, as well as football, you know. We’re looking for a big turnout. We want to take the time to invite as many as we can. We also, football-wise, we’re going to be doing a lot of 7-on-7 games. We’re going to go to a big 7-on-7 tournament over at Ayden-Grifton.

“And as far as me as AD, getting the winter and the spring schedules confirmed and finalized. Working on EAPs (emergency action plans), because safety’s always a concern with athletics around some of these. And just making sure everybody’s eligibility is in compliance.”

Then the last thing is just your expectations for not only the conference but the eight classifications. What are your expectations going into the fall year for that and just sports in general?

“Well, our expectation, of course, is to grow our sports. We would love to see our numbers increase in all of our sports, especially our girls’ sports. We would love to add cross country. So that’s something we’re looking at. And we’re just trying to see if we can gather enough interest to go forward with that in the fall.

“As far as the realignment goes, the teams in the Coastal Plains Conference will be the same. The difference there is that Northside and Jones Senior are going to remain 1A, while everybody else, us, Lejeune, Pamlico County and East Carteret are getting bumped up to 2A. I guess what I’m more interested in looking forward to is the playoffs and how that’s going to be taken care of.

“The new platform, especially with the smaller sports in our classifications, such as soccer, wrestling, and golf, it’s going to be interesting just to see how that goes. Really just looking forward to seeing how the state is going to go forward with the playoffs and the seedings.”