Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Northside boys golf team tied for eighth in the 1A state tournament back in May with two girls, Claire Holmes and Sophie Berry, on the team playing with boy’s regulations.

To field a girl’s golf team, you need at least three golfers as the top three scores count towards qualification. With the girls seeing success at the boy’s level head coach Jared Adams thought it made sense to give them a shot to compete against other girl’s teams.

Joining Holmes and Berry will be two softball players, Samantha Braddy and Riley Hudson, which makes a team of four for the Panthers.

“With their success in softball, they have the hand-eye coordination to be successful in golf,” Adams said. “Hopefully they can take some things they learn from golf and translate it to the softball field.”

Northside has a full schedule with eleven regular season matches before the conference tournament with their first match beginning August 22 at the Greenville Country Club where they will play against Pitt County Schools.

Other matches include conference matches against East Carteret and Pamlico County, and they will also have matches at Washington Country Club against West Craven and Washington High School.

Although it is only their first season, Adams has high expectations for his group of girls. “The first month might be tough, but I think by the end of the season we should be seeing success,” Adams said. “We are going to qualify for regionals and have a chance to qualify for state.”

Beaufort County Athletic Director Keith Mitchell is excited for the opportunity for these girls to display their skills. “Anytime we can give an opportunity for female athletes to showcase their talents it is important we take advantage of that,” Mitchell said. “Women’s golf is a growing sport; it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw more teams formed in the coming years.”