NMB Chiefs look for another shot at baseball title

Little River – The North Myrtle Beach high baseball program has been knocking on the door of a state championship in recent years. The hope is they kick down the door in 2024.

The Chiefs took a major step last spring, winning the AAAA Lower State championship and reaching the AAAA state championship series. Unfortunately, the Chiefs lost the best-of-three series to Catawba Ridge.

Nonetheless, reaching the state finals was a big accomplishment and with a solid cast of returning players this season, coach Brian Alderson has high expectations.

“This team has lots of potential,” the coach said. “We will, I believe, definitely have the pitching to make a strong run again. My concern is defensively we have been sloppy at times. We have made 15 errors in our first nine games but 12 came in our one week two game series with West Florence. We have to play cleaner defensively because our pitching is good enough to give us a chance.”

The Chiefs have won nine of their first 11 games this season, losing once to West Florence in a region 6-AAAA matchup and losing to AAAAA power Fort Mill in a preseason tournament.

Alderson, now in his 10^th season, says some of the early issues defensively may be due to his team playing a little tight.

“Everyone has told this team how good they are and I think maybe the pressure is building,” the coach said. “We just need to relax and trust what we are capable of doing. Just play the game. If we play good defensively we can compete with any team in the state.”

Pitching is clearly a strength of this year’s squad. Led by junior righty Luke Roupe, a Vanderbilt commit, and 6-4 senior southpaw Josh Surigao, a Hawaii commit, the Chiefs have two of the top arms in the state.

Adding depth is USC Upstate commit Austin Long, a senior, along with senior lefty Cody Rice and sophomore Sawyer Smith, a University of North Carolina commit.

Smith also is the starting shortstop while Rice plays first base. Roupe plays third defensively.

Junior catcher CJ Oxendine is strong behind the plate and has committed to play at Virginia Tech. Peyton Gallup sees time at third when Roupe pitches while junior Asa Board and Connor Helmecki work at second base.

Junior Gabe Kuznik starts in right field with Campbell Kingston working in left. Mason Cox is the starter in center, moving over from leftfield.

“Offensively, the top of the order has been pretty solid so we’re trying to get more consistent production from the bottom,” Alderson said. “The potential is there. We just have to keep working at it. These next few weeks will be really important for us.”

In softball, coach Danny Susral has his team sitting at 6-8 overall and 3-3 in region play entering spring break. The Chiefs will play some spring break games before getting back into the regular season with several key region games upcoming.

The bulk of the playing time this season is shared by underclassmen with only one senior, outfielder Mary Beth Carrick, seeing regular action as a starter.

Handling the bulk of the pitching duties this season are junior Nealy Lockner and sophomore Sierra Bendik, who also share duties at shortstop. Lockner has four wins and Bendik has two. Lockner also is hitting ,343 early on.

Junior Kiera Olson is working in center and hitting .414 early on. Sophomore Sadie Olson is catching and hitting .349, while sophomore third baseman Isabella Bruno leads the team in hitting with a .440 average and nine RBI’s.

Sophomore Hadley Leonhardt is hitting .385 with nine RBI’s and sophomore Lily Carney plays first base and is hitting .440 with a team-high 11 RBI’s. Junior Ellie Joynson and sophomore Cheyenne Davis are playing second base.