In her first year as the St. James High School varsity softball coach, Paula Blackwell already knows Raegan Tibbits’ value.
Tibbits, a junior pitcher for the Sharks, has played a key role in St. James’ current run of four-straight region titles. Tibbits will be the group’s anchor as the team looks to make it five in a row in the new Class 5A Beach Region and in Blackwell’s first season at the helm.
Blackwell, a former basketball coach at York High School, compares Tibbits to a former player she coached who had a decent bit of success — Ivory Latta.
Latta, who after high school became a standout at UNC-Chapel Hill and went on to have a successful WNBA career, was one of Blackwell’s standouts on the basketball court during her time at York. But now years later on the softball field in Murrells Inlet, Blackwell notices similar traits in her junior pitcher.
“I had Ivory and she was such a selfless player,” Blackwell said. “At any time, she wanted to get her teammates involved. Sometimes the game would get close, and I could kind of look at her. She’d just say, ‘I got it’, and then she would go and rattle off 20 points and put the game away.
“Raegan, at any time, she takes over the game. She just throws strikes and sits them down, and she does it so effortlessly. And now, it’s to the point where she’s thinking about leaving her legacy. She’s starting to help some of the younger pitchers out, even down on the B-team and on JV.”
Tibbits showed off her dominance in the Sharks’ first region game of the season on Monday, a 13-1 home victory over Myrtle Beach. She picked up where she left off during a successful 2024 season tossing four scoreless innings and setting the tone from the start against a Seahawk lineup that struggled to keep up.
The junior says she feels confident that more good things are on the horizon for St. James as the group looks ahead to competing in the Beach Region. Others like eighth grader Sophia Roloson will throw innings for the Sharks, but it will be Tibbits who will make her case for Horry County’s top arm.
Helped by others in the St. James junior class — like Lillie Daniels, Kenzie Kraus and Samantha Allen, the Sharks feel confident in their ability to make it five in a row.
“I think we needed this to get a good jumpstart on the region… We have mostly everyone back, so we’re ready for everything,” Tibbits said after collecting the win on Monday. “This year is almost like a get-back kind of year. We want to go all the way. I think we’re competing hard and we have more drive… this is definitely super fun. We’re all close. We’re one together. That makes things so much fun.”
Last year, the Sharks won a district title but suffered playoff losses to Summerville and Berkeley late in the playoffs to be eliminated.
Blackwell says she’s been pleased with what she has seen from the group so far, and she’s looking forward to watching her group try to finish off the first region series of the year on Friday night, back at home. The third game of the region series against Myrtle Beach is set for 6 p.m. Friday.
“The team chemistry and the culture is excellent right now,” Blackwell said. “We can’t take Myrtle Beach lightly, because they can easily turn it around. Every day is a new day, so we’re going to have to come in every day focused, ready to go and locked in.”
St. James baseball opens up region play
The first six games of the season for St. James baseball were — in a word — odd.
After going 18-8 last year (including an 11-1 region record, good for a region championship), head coach Robbie Centracchio’s team returned quite a few pieces and hoped they would be able to hit the gas pedal immediately to open up the 2025 season.
But that didn’t quite happen.
The bats went cold to start the year against an admittedly difficult non-region slate, seeing the Sharks go just 1-5 over their first outings of the preseason/early season on the diamond.
Between March 2 and March 14, the Sharks played four games with little to show on the offensive end: losses to Lugoff-Elgin (2-1), Catawba Ridge (3-1), West Forsyth (8-0) and Wando (3-0).
That slow start is why Monday’s 9-3 region-opening victory over Myrtle Beach felt fairly important as the Sharks kicked off Beach Region play at Shark Park. St. James swung the sticks well from the start, helped by timely hitting from junior leaders like catcher Luke Kessler to knock off the Seahawks.
Centracchio said that while the tough start didn’t check all the boxes on paper, the early season gauntlet might not have been the worst thing in the world.
“We were in those games and we battled in those games, and I feel like it prepared us,” the longtime coach said. “We did get down a little bit, and I think the confidence for some of our guys was down at times. We weren’t finishing all the games like I feel like we should, but I think those games helped prepare us for games when the region is on the line.”
The Sharks certainly looked prepared against the Seahawks on Monday, as the group jumped out of the gate and never looked back.
Henry Dufour looked sharp in his start, while Kessler drove in an early run on a single, one of many quality at-bats for the junior catcher against Myrtle Beach. Alex Sandt’s bloop single started a Sharks rally in the third inning, where St. James went up 6-1 by the inning’s end. Sandt would later add another RBI on an extra-base knock.
Myrtle Beach pitcher Julian Neagles provided some solid relief for the Seahawks, but Myrtle Beach couldn’t ever find a steady rhythm against the Sharks’ pitching duo of Dufour and Frank Pepe, two left-handers who will carry a large bulk of the work for Centracchio this season.
It’s unlikely that Monday night will be the last time Dufour and Pepe combine for a standout region performance.
“Henry changes his speeds well and he throws to soft contact early. When he’s on, he’s hard to hit,” Centracchio said. “Henry is such a big-game pitcher, and when you have a combination of him and Frank together, it’s tough.”
Across the diamond, there’s optimism that the Sharks can put together another standout, region-winning campaign.
Kessler will anchor the unit behind the dish, and quality bats fill the team’s lineup from the top down. Jeter Centracchio, Josh Harnish and Justin Sobczyk lead a group of talented returners, which also includes big-hitting sophomore first baseman Rome Derenzo.
The Sharks will finish up region play against Myrtle Beach at home on Friday before traveling to Carolina Forest on Monday, March 24, to kick off a three-game set with the Panthers.
“We know that region play is what puts you in a position to make a good playoff run,” Centracchio said. “I think our mindset is going to be a little bit different when we play region games, and it always has been at St. James. This region is a little bit different because we have some new teams in it. We’re going to try to add to what we did tonight and get a little bit better.”
Friday’s area region schedule
Baseball and softball doubleheaders will become a staple of Friday nights for the next six or seven weeks across Horry County. Below is the area doubleheader schedule for Friday night, March 21:
Aynor vs. Loris (Aynor baseball hosts, Loris softball hosts)Carolina Forest vs. SocasteeConway at North Myrtle BeachSt. James vs. Myrtle Beach
Atlantic Collegiate baseball and softball will both play twice against Marion next week.
Green Sea Floyds will continue Class 1A region play in both baseball and softball at Latta on Friday, March 28.
March 18, 2025 | Horry Independent, The (Conway, SC)
Author/Byline: Joe Wedra | Section: Sports