North Bay Haven rolling to record breaking season

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) – Despite losing the majority of their starting lineup from the year prior, the North Bay Haven volleyball team is having a record-breaking season.

The Buccaneers are 16-2, their best record through 18 games in program history. It’s a young team with mostly juniors and sophomores.

Junior outside hitter, Reese Warren is leading the way on offense, averaging more than three kills per set.

The Buccaneers graduated half of their starting lineup which led them to the Class 4A Region Semifinals last season, and a few more key returners transferred to Mosley in the off-season.

North Bay Haven junior right side, Addison Gorman said they team has done well to rally with the remaining pieces.

“It was definitely hard losing them because, like I said, they were some of our strongest players,” Gorman said. “So it definitely sucked losing them. But we did realize that we were a smaller team, so we knew we had to put in a lot more work and work much harder than the rest of the schools around here. So, we have been doing that and we know that it is harder to work when you’re much smaller.”

The Buccaneers are currently ranked No. 15 in Class 3A and No. 2 in Region 1.

Many of the players on the team have experience winning a playoff game and juniors Amaya Hutchinson and Kaitlyn Smith said they want to go even further this season.

“Last year we made two Sweet 16, which was amazing, Hutchinson said. “So we know we can go even farther than that. We just have to push through so hard, we just have to believe in ourselves.”

“It feels really good to show how much we’ve improved over the years,” Smith said. “You know, 16-2 is no small feat. It was fun to get here and we want to see how far we can go!”

North Bay Haven is led by third-year head coach, Emersonn Cabatu. In the season prior to his arrival, the Bucs finished with a 5-15 record, but since then the program is 47-22 overall.

The Buccaneers will visit South Walton on Wednesday, October 2, and they have three more matches before their district tournament begins.

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