The Whiteville Wolfpack Varsity Baseball team is off to an incredibly hot start in their 2024 campaign. The Wolfpack currently sit with a record of 8-1, with that one loss coming in late February in a game against the experienced Colts of Cape Fear in Fayetteville. This 4-0 loss was Whiteville’s first game of the season.
Since then, Whiteville has gone 8-0 defeating teams by an average margin of 6.9 runs a game. This start has been the best under third-year head coach Turner Brown. Brown is a Whiteville alumni who had an impressive run at East Carolina, starting in over 200 games for the Pirates before a short stint in the Minor Leagues.
He takes a lot of pride in making sure the Wolfpack continue the success left by legendary coach Brett Harwood, who won five state championships in his tenure with the team. Brown has already led Whiteville to a state championship appearance in his first season. He led his very talented group to a 23-5 record, a 10-0 conference record, and a run all the way to the 2A State Championship game before being swept by the Randleman Tigers.
The expectations are high for this year’s group, and Whiteville has excelled thus far. When asked about what has been key for the great start through the high expectations, Junior Caleb Johnson stated, “Pressure is a privilege.”
“You are expected to win at Whiteville. You are supposed to have great success. We are expected to win, ” Coach Brown said in an earlier interview. The future is bright for the Pack as this group is relatively young, with only four seniors and four freshmen, with the rest being sophomores and juniors. With a very talented JV team behind them, Whiteville has much to grow within the next few seasons.
Whiteville’s next game is scheduled for Monday, April 1, vs Franklinton High School at 4 pm. The matchup with the 3-6 Rams will be the first game of a three-game tournament in Greenville, N.C. for the Pitt County Classic.
