NCSSM-Morganton adds 3 sports this fall, 4 total in 2023-24

One year ago, the North Carolina School for Science and Math’s Morganton campus opened its first year with a plan to field eight varsity-level athletic squads.

That number grew by three over the course of the school year and will be nearly doubled in the 2023-24 school year, when NCSSM-Morganton adds a senior class and is expected to approximately double in enrollment.

“(Starting our athletic programs) was a fun challenge,” said Ian McMichael, assistant athletic director for NCSSM, who serves as the head AD at the Morganton campus. 

“We were making some of it up as we went along. I started very late in the process. I think my first day was Aug. 4, (2022) which was already a week into when fall sports had begun across the state. But we had a fantastic group of people through our faculty, staff, and administration that were working to uplift and get our athletic programs going.”

NCSSM-Morganton’s initial year one plan was to field teams in boys and girls cross country, boys and girls swimming, boys and girls tennis, and boys and girls track and field. Along the way, the Dragons added boys and girls basketball (with a limited schedule of just a handful of games) as well as boys golf.

McMichael said student interest was the main factor in the school deciding which sports to offer.

“It was mainly driven by that,” he said, “and then also just going off the historical participation of our institution at Durham and its recommendations.” 

This year, the school will add three sports programs in the fall – volleyball, boys soccer, and girls golf – as well as adding girls soccer in the spring.

That will bring NCSSM-Morganton to 15 sports out of the total 24 that are currently sanctioned by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.

In addition to offering more sports, NCSSM-Morganton joins the Western Highlands 1A/2A Conference as a 1A member, a move the NCHSAA approved in late November 2022.

NCSSM-Morganton is now immediately eligible for the NCHSAA postseason in all team sports in which the school’s programs qualify.

“We’re extremely excited we will be in a conference and excited about the future and the new challenges and opportunities that await us there,” McMichael said. “It becomes a lot more real and more of a competitive environment. … I think our kids thrive in the kind of environment where they are challenged. They seem to embrace that and enjoy working hard to improve.”

NCSSM-Morganton this school year will again host tennis matches at the Western Piedmont Community College courts. 

The school will also host a cross country meet at the WPCC course; continue to play at North Carolina School for the Deaf’s Underhill Gym for basketball and host volleyball matches there as well; host swim meets at the Morganton Aquatic Center; use Silver Creek Golf Club for practices and home matches; and be at the Catawba River Soccer Complex for soccer. 

“We really are grateful for the community support, and we love using those facilities,” McMichael said. “It’s awesome to spread our footprint a little bit across the community. We love being a part of Morganton and Burke County.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article ran in the June 24 edition of The Paper. It has been trimmed and edited to update date references. With NCSSM-Morganton students arriving back on campus this past weekend, and thus fall sports practices just getting started this week, team capsules were unavailable.)

Paul Schenkel can be reached at 828-445-8595 (ext. 2002) or paul@thepaper.media.