Palmetto Christian Academy moving up in classification

By Neill Kirkpatrick

Special to the HSSR

Mt. Pleasant – The 2023/24 athletic year for Palmetto Christian Academy was a solid one as several teams qualified for the playoffs with girls’ basketball and volleyball both making deep runs in their respective tournaments and boys swimming and x-country placing second and third at their respective state AAA meets.

           “It has been exciting to see our student/athletes and coaches putting together good seasons. It shows how our programs are growing and getting better. We are excited to add wrestling this coming year,” said Athletic Director Dale Hoover.

           Success in athletics can help in a lot of ways for SCISA schools and one way is larger enrollment but that also can change your classification, PCA will moving up to AAAA in every sport but football and boys’ soccer.

           Coach Hoover on moving, “ It will likely be our toughest year in a while as we are moving up to 4A in all sports except football and boys’ soccer where we will stay at AAA. There will be a learning curve but I believe our kids and coaches will adapt. It may take us a while to enjoy the success we had at our former classifications but we will work hard to make the transition as quickly as possible.”

           “I expect us to give great effort and to compete at a high level as we continue to grow as an athletic program. It is all about getting to the heart behind the jersey and our coaches do a great job of getting the most from our athletes,” Hoover continued.

Coach Hoover also coaches the schools cross-country and the Track and Field teams. His boys x-country team brought home the bronze medal from the AAA state meet while the boys track and field team finished seventh at the state meet. The girls placed 16^th.

Head girls coach Raygon Hendrix led her to their best finish yet as they advanced into the second round of the AAA tournament. Unfortunately, they ran into six-time state champion Hilton Head Christian in the semis. They finished the year at 16-7.

The Volleyball team also reached the semis of the AAA tournament where they fell to eventual AAA state champion Shannon Forest (First Presbyterian). Coach Shelley Kaiser’s team won the region championship and finished the year 25-16-3.

           Leading the swim teams is coach Alexandria Sirles. She led the boy’s team to a runner up finish at the SCISA state Division II.

Megan Stuckey heads up the cheer program and her JV team won “The Game Day Experience” state championship.

Sara Turriago leads the Equestrian team while Trey Campbell (Boys) and Tom Crick (Girls) coach the golf teams

           Soccer coaches are Arturo Suarez (Boys) and Alex Fritts (Girls). Suarez’s team made the playoffs this past season.

Rounding out the coaching staff are baseball coach Curtis Ramsey; boys Tennis coaches Brittany and Jonathan Hoffman and girls’ tennis coach is Pam Kraft.

New coaches are David Moore is the new head coach for Varsity football coach and John Harris is the new Varsity Boys Basketball head coach.

“Our coaches work hard to try make things fun, build team comradery and letting the kids know that they are more than just athletes. We want them to teach life lessons through the use of sports,” coach Hoover said.