- Brandy Whitfield scored her 2,000th point and signed to play basketball at Daytona State College after leading Newberry girls to a 21-5 record.
- Juwan Scippio, who scored 1,000 points, signed with St. Petersburg College and helped Newberry boys reach the region final for the first time.
- Desmond Taylor, batting .320 with 23 strikeouts as a pitcher, signed with St. Johns River State College as a two-way baseball player.
- Olivia Tharp and Sarah Burns signed with Florida State College of Jacksonville and Johnson and Wales University respectively after back-to-back district titles.
On Tuesday, some of the top athletes at Newberry High School got the opportunity to sign collegiately.
Headlining the list is girls basketball player Brandy Whitfield, who scored her 2,000th point against Keystone Heights in this year’s district tournament.
First-year head coach Jessica Ross used one word to describe her.
“Phenomenal,” Ross said. “She does all the big things, and she also does the smaller things. I would say she was a great leader, encouraging her teammates, trying to get the best out of her teammates, and it’s definitely going to be hard to replace her next year.”
Whitfield will be playing college basketball at Daytona State College.
“It felt like a family,” Whitfield said. “I loved how the coaches talk to their players. They don’t get down on them. Just everything about them felt like a family, and it felt like I belonged there when I went to go visit.”
The first team All Area selection, who scored a season-high 43 points against The Rock School and 41 points against Fort White, helped lead the Panthers (21-5) to their first region final since 2012 by averaging 28.3 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 3.7 steals.
Juwan Scippio, who helped lead the Newberry boys basketball team to its first region final in program history, is headed to St. Petersburg College.
“St. Pete is an amazing school, amazing basketball school, amazing academic school,” said Scippio, who scored his 1,000th point against Fort White this past season. “The reason I chose St. Pete was because most of the other schools’ offers were partial offers, but St. Pete gave me a full ride, and I have a good chance of getting a good spot on the team.”
Scippio (6’4), who will play shooting guard at the next level, helped lead the Panthers (21-4) to within a game of the final four before a 75-60 loss at Andrew Jackson (Jacksonville) in the FHSAA Class 3A-Region 1 Final.
This past season, Scippio earned first team big school All Area honors after scoring 12.9 points per game and he led the Panthers with 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game.
“He’s probably most known for his jump shots and rebounding, but he’s really that utility player that kind of does it all,” said Newberry boys basketball coach Patrick Green. “That’s one of the things I think I remember most about him. If he’s slightly injured or a shot is not falling, he finds a way to impact the game.”
Desmond Taylor of the Newberry baseball team will also be staying in the Sunshine State. He signed with St. Johns River State College.
“I’m excited for the challenge,” Taylor said. “I like the coaches there. They always stayed in contact with me, even before they offered me, and since they offered me, it’s been the same. It feels like a family.”
This past season, Taylor batted .320 for the Panthers (18-7), who narrowly missed the Class 2A playoffs in a super competitive region. He was second on the team with a .570 on base percentage and 33 runs scored.
He’s a two-way player who will play outfield and pitch. He was 2-1 on the mound with one save and had 23 strikeouts in 21.1 innings pitched.
“Desmond is a coach’s dream,” said NHS baseball coach Mike Spina. “I can tell you that I’ve been blessed to coach him for four years now, and he’s such a great kid on and off the field. He works extremely hard in the classroom. I think he’s got a 4.5 GPA. He’s an extreme leader and a hard worker on the baseball field, and we’re definitely going to miss him.”
The NHS softball team is sending a pair to the next level.
Olivia Tharp signed with Florida State College of Jacksonville, while Sarah Burns inked with Division-III Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Last year, they helped Newberry win its first district title since 1999, and this past season, they won a second straight Class 2A-District 5 title, earning a regional playoff game two years in a row.
“Olivia’s a part of the first group of girls that I’ve coached now for four years here, and my first group of seniors to kind of see it all the way through,” said Newberry softball coach Michele Roundtree. “Adding Sarah two years ago, it just really kind of put us in a position to have the success that we’ve had.”
Tharp, a four-year varsity player, is headed to the same school where her sister, Hailey, played volleyball, although that’s not the reason why she chose FSCJ.
“So, I went up there, we went to multiple college camps that summer, and I went up there to visit her,” Tharp explained. “And then I was like, ‘I’ll just sign up for a hitting camp,’ because I wasn’t hitting good at my previous tournament. I signed up and I loved the coach. It’s a family aspect, just like Newberry, and it’s exactly what I was looking for. It was right then that I knew that that was my school.”
Burns led the pitching staff with a 2.05 ERA and 124 strikeouts in 82 innings pitched.
“I didn’t have a lot of options to be completely honest, just because of coming back from elbow surgery (May 2024) was a lot, and I didn’t get to play as often,” Burns said. “I didn’t get to be seen in front of college coaches, all that kind of stuff, so I had like two or three options.
“When I went on this visit, I just immediately got this feeling of home, like I was leaving my home in Florida to be able to go to another home, and I mean, that’s like the one feeling that you want to be able to feel when you’re looking for the next four years into the future. And so that’s just kind of what drove me. There was just the feeling of home.”
Offensive lineman T.J. Norris will play football for Erskine College, a private Christian college in Due West, South Carolina.
Norris injured his left knee in the first game of the season and played hurt his entire senior year. He did a lot of therapy but waited until after the season to have surgery.
“There were some ups and downs, but without the ups and downs, I wouldn’t be where I’m at,” he said. “I battled through my injuries. God does everything for a reason. It was a good year. I can’t say it was a bad year because God does everything for a reason.”
Norris (6‘2, 285) will play guard at the next level.
“He’s very athletic, even after coming back off of tearing his ACL,” said Panthers’ football coach Ed Johnson. “He battled through that. He’s 280 plus, but he moves well. He’s ferocious, physical inside, which you need to be, but he’s also a coachable kid. He’s a great kid that’s easy to be around.”