The Long County Lady Blue Tide basketball team will enter the 2025-26 basketball season with a new head coach, but a familiar face for many of the students.
Stevie Harrison was named the new head coach at the end of the 2024-25 school year and immediately went to work with the team, looking to prepare them for a run at the state playoffs.
Harrison is no stranger to the Blue Tide as he has served as the offensive coordinator for the football team since 2021 and has been in the system since well before that.
He enters the season with nine years experience coaching basketball, but this will be the first as head coach of a high school team. He is excited for how hard working the group of girls he has going into the season.
“They did a great job last year in the weight room and they’ve done an excellent job all summer working out, practicing,” Harrison said. “They’ve just consistently put in the work every day and they’ve done what I’ve asked them to do and what Coach (Malaka) Elix and (Elexxus) Wrighton have asked them to do. They enjoy working hard.”
The Lady Tide missed the playoffs the last two seasons and finished with records of 10-14 and 6-14. Harrison said that it all comes down to one thing for them to get back to the playoffs and compete for a region title.
“We have to be consistent,” Harrison said, “consistent with the work, consistent with the effort. We have to make an intentional effort to try and get better every day. We don’t have the luxury of taking days off or letting off the gas pedal. We gotta play fast, we gotta practice fast. Everything we do has gotta be fast. We are going to have to work for it.”
With a team that has won just 16 games over the last two years and a new head coach, it’s easy to imagine that there will be some significant challenges. Harrison said that one of the first challenges starts with their practice times right now and his duties with the football team.
“We’re having to practice late every night because of me coaching football, so they’re having to wait two and a half hours after school just for practice,” Harrison said. “And then having to wake up first thing in the morning and go straight to weightlifting and hear me screaming at them at 7:05. That’s probably our biggest challenge so far.”
Harrison also touched on Region 3-AAA and how that impacts the way they have prepared for the season.
“We are in a very deep region with a lot of really good basketball teams,” Harrison said. “We’ve gotta figure out a way to win some of these games that are 50/50 games. We’ve gotta win the close ones.”
Region 3-AAA features two teams that advanced deep into the playoffs last year with defending champion Jenkins advancing to the AAA Final Four before falling to eventual state champion Cherokee Bluff by a point.
Calvary Day was the runner-up and they advanced to the A-AAA Private Elite Eight after a 19-win season.
Other teams that will compete for a spot in the state playoffs are Liberty County and Windsor Forest, both teams that advanced to the state playoffs last year, as well as Groves and Beach.
Overall, Harrison believes this team has a chance to compete for a region title and their goal is to make the state playoffs.
“I expect to finish somewhere in the top of the region and I hope the girls have that same expectation,” he said. “Going into the summer, I was not really sure where we would be at, but after a really good summer, going to FCA camp and having a really good showing, it gave the coaching staff and girls confidence and a real belief in themselves.”
Harrison thinks this season will be overall good because their girls “have no quit.”
“I think this will be a good season because of their ability to push and go and to be OK getting coached hard,” Harrison said.
The Lady Tide open the regular season on Friday, November 21 with a road matchup against former region rival Tattnall County.