With Northside’s 3-0 loss to Riverside, the 2014 NCHSAA volleyball season concluded for Beaufort County teams Thursday evening and while coaches are normally reluctant to fast forward 10 months, one theme seems to be ubiquitous throughout.

Rebuilding — a word every coach always thinks twice before saying, a word that yields to immediate struggles for future success. In fact, some coaches refuse to use it altogether, but it’s a word that each of the three county coaches has used at one point this season, rightfully so.

Washington and Northside are coming off their best seasons in recent memory. The Pam Pack managed to win an Eastern Plains Conference championship, a tournament title and a playoff match, while the Panthers finished second in their conference, only to advance further than the first-place team (Pamlico County) in the postseason.

There’s no definite, widely accepted definition of the term “rebuilding” in high school athletics. In Major League Baseball, the process can be defined as trading away aged veterans for unproven, fashionable talent. Or in college sports, it can mean hiring a new coach and revamping a recruiting process. High school, on the other hand, is a little trickier. Once a core group of reliable seniors graduates, a crop of promising freshman waiting to take their place isn’t always guaranteed.

“My seniors have given me leadership, dedication and talent — we’re going to lose a lot of talented players. It’s going to be a rebuilding year coming up,” Northside head coach Kayla Maddox said after Thursday’s match.

Maddox, who navigated the Panthers to a 14-7 record, will have to replace half of her team next season. Kara Fath, Briana Swain, Jaime Woolard, Kelsey Lang, Alex Adams and Ashley Paszt are all seniors. That equates to four of the team’s six starters, including Adams, who is the team’s leader in kills, and Lang and Paszt, who are arguably two of the Panthers’ best defensive options.

“The underclassmen see the big shoes they have to fill and they know it’s going to be a challenge. I hope (the strong playoff performance) pushes them to want more,” Maddox said.

At the end of the season when asked about her seniors, Washington head coach Kelly Slade said, “The five seniors meant a lot to us being successful this year and are going to be hard to replace.”

The Pam Pack will have to compete in 2014 without four of their five starters — Alexis Brooks, Abby Walker, Adriana Tyson, Allison Brantley — as well as its No. 1 option off the bench, Haley Hutchins. Tyson and Walker are the team’s No. 1 and No. 2 leaders in kills, respectively, while Allison Brantley is arguably the top defensive player in the conference.

Luckily, Slade seems to have the talent to fill the vacancies, enough to likely stay competitive next season.

Unlike Slade and Maddox, rebuilding was a topic of conversation at the beginning to the season for Southside, following the loss four key seniors, including lead hitter Katilyn Laughinghouse.

With a starting lineup that featured two freshmen, a sophomore, a junior and two seniors, the Seahawks failed to win a single match and captured just three games all season. For them, rebuilding begins with finding a leader. And with a roster full of young athletes who shared success at the middle school level, there are plenty of candidates.

While the high school rebuilding process is impossible to define and relative to each individual team’s needs, Washington, Northside and Southside will certainly have their own personalized plan come next season.