Local athletes transition from rivals to teammates

PANAMA CITY, Fla. ( WMBB ) — Four Panhandle volleyball players, who have competed against each other for the last four years, are now headed to college as teammates.

A Class 1A State Champion has come out of Region 2 in ten of the last eleven years. Nine of those have been won by Sneads, one most recently won by Liberty County and while Blountstown hasn’t checked that box yet, they’re consistently in the postseason mix.

“All of high school, we’ve been competing against each other, trying to win over each other and prove that we’re the better team,” Liberty County alum Savannah Creamer said.

Now those bitter rivals are headed to play on the same team.

Blountstown’s Abbie Mathews, Sneads’ Ella Sprouse and Morgan Dykes, and Liberty County’s Savannah Creamer are all headed to Coastal Alabama North.

“It feels good having somebody that’s been on all my past teams come with me to college,” Sneads alum Morgan Dykes said. “I feel like we’re going to have that team chemistry and it’s also going to help having Savannah and Abbie there because we’ve all played each other for years now.”

The former high school standouts are all headed to Coastal Alabama North, a junior college program in Brewton.

While the competition gets tougher at the collegiate level, this local quartette is well-prepared.

“It was very good competition over the years, and it showed that we could push ourselves to be better even when we think we couldn’t work any harder,” Creamer said.

The group had a preview of their future at the beginning of the year when they played on the same team for the area’s senior all-star game.

“It was like we had been playing with each other from the beginning,” Blountstown’s Abbie Mathews said. “It’s just really cool when you can come together like that from teams so competitive.”

All four girls moved into their new home on Friday and will start practice on Thursday, August 1.

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