Prep notebook: Hardin eager for North Myrtle Beach spring football practice

Blair Hardin’s 2014 was a bit of a blur.

The North Myrtle Beach football coach was hired in June, had little over a month to prepare his coaches and players for fall camp and them jumped into a season that ended with the Chiefs finishing second in Region VII-AAA.

For obvious reasons, Hardin already feels like he’s ahead of the game this time around. On Tuesday, Hardin will kick off in his first spring football schedule, not only with North Myrtle Beach, but as a head coach. His previous two stops in North Carolina could not conduct official offseason practices.

“It feels like now I have a better understanding of where our kids are,” Hardin said. “I’ve had a whole season with them. You get to know your kids and your coaches.

“Every system is different. But trying to understand what we’re doing on offense and defense, the better it will be. This year, we can have a true installation.”

While it is only 15 practices, and they open without pads or contact, South Carolina coaches tend to appreciate the extra time on the field. The feeling is typically mutual from a player perspective, as all the time in the weight room can become mundane.

As for the Chiefs, the May schedule will allow them to undergo the spring sessions under the same schemes they will run in the fall, and with a few new faces.

North Myrtle Beach will be moving on without two-way star Colby Gore, the Toast of the Coast Defensive Player of the Year in linebacker Keyshawn Moore and eight other seniors from last year’s team. Also gone is rising junior running back Cullin Mitchell, whose late-season production helped spur the second-place finish. Mitchell and his family moved back to Virginia.

However, Hardin estimates up to eight starters returning on each side of the ball.

“I have high expectations for our team,” he said. “I told our team that. That’s not going to change.”

Playoffs, playoffs and more playoffs

Two years after Socastee boys tennis won a Class AAA championship, the Braves are hoping to make a significant run in their first year back in the state’s highest class.

Kirk McQuiddy’s team begins the playoffs Tuesday with a 5:30 p.m. match against Irmo at Prestwick Country Club. A win there is accompanied by at least one more home match, although anything more than that would probably require some serious luck.

Socastee’s portion of the bracket includes two-time defending Lower State champion South Aiken. If everything holds true, those two No. 1 seeds would meet at South Aiken next Monday.

“I am not as optimistic, because I know a lot more now than I did back then,” McQuiddy said. “If we get by South Aiken, we’ll be a contender for a state champion again.”

Socastee will also have to continue to do what it has done in every match so far this year. Behind No. 1 Kyle Barr and No. 2 Britton Bellamy (both undefeated in singles and doubles play this season), the Braves are 12-0.

That includes a sweep of Region VI-AAAA competition. In the process, Socastee twice defeated West Florence 5-2, ending the Knights’ streak of 13 region titles.

Joining Socastee in the boys tennis playoff fold on Tuesday is Carolina Forest, Conway, St. James, Myrtle Beach and Georgetown (the Class AA brackets are expected to be released by Tuesday morning). Baseball and softball teams are well underway, with only one area squad that made the postseason having been eliminated entering Monday’s games.

The girls soccer playoffs started Monday night, with boys soccer starting Tuesday.

An updated playoff schedule for all five sports is available at MyrtleBeachOnline.com. It will be amended again Wednesday morning.

Seahawks make most of Region VII-AAA

Myrtle Beach Athletics Director John Cahill was surprised when he started typing out a list of his school’s region champions for this year.

Season by season, the Seahawks displayed a relative level of region excellence. In total, 11 varsity sports at the school won Region VII-AAA titles.

“We have high expectations to win the region in all sports. But to have 10, that’s a pretty incredible feat,” said Cahill, before the team won its 11th via boys golf on Monday. “In the last three years, we haven’t won 10 total.”

The trend began in the fall, when girls tennis (an eventual state champion), football, volleyball, girls swimming and boys and girls cross country each finished atop their region standings. Girls basketball then kept it going with a winter title.

In the past two months, it’s been more of the same as baseball, boys golf and boys and girls soccer each won region championships.

“It’s a lot of hard work by the coaches, a lot of hard work by the students on and off the field,” Cahill said.

College football offers

Old Dominion’s recruiting efforts on the Grand Strand keyed in on three of the area’s top offensive weapons.

Last week, Conway running back Jah’Maine Martin, Myrtle Beach quarterback Drayton Arnold and Seahawks tailback Brandon Sinclair all drew offers from the Norfolk, Va., Conference USA school in a two-day span last week.

Arnold, who also received an offer from Charlotte on Monday morning, previously had offers from NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision programs Akron and Ohio. He led the area in passing yards as a junior last season, going for nearly 2,900 yards and 37 touchdown passes.

Sinclair, who has led the area in rushing each of the last two seasons, also has offers from Coastal Carolina and Cornell. Martin picked up his second offer last week as well, that one coming from South Carolina State. Last fall, Martin had his breakout season, rushing for more than 1,100 yards.

This story was originally published May 4, 2015 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Prep notebook: Hardin eager for North Myrtle Beach spring football practice."