Today we traveled down to Beaufort, North Carolina and sat down with Head Coach Josh VanMeter. Coach VanMeter enters his first year at the helm with East Carteret High School. Find out more about the 2023 Mariners in today’s Program Preview..

How has the move been to East Carteret after leaving West Stokes last year? Was it hard to leave the boys from Kings, North Carolina?

Absolutely tough, West Stokes afforded me a great opportunity to begin my head coaching career and I will forever be thankful for that experience with those players, administration & families. The transition to East has been much simpler than the move was a year ago to Winston Salem, only because ENC is home for us. Our family and friends all are here and helped that transition period for me and my wife at a very crazy time in our lives when my Son Maddux was born in June of 2022.

Take us through your young journey of coaching, you have been at a few stops.. Where have you been and what have you learned along the way?

I have certainly been able to learn and grow at each of my stops along the way. I began my coaching career at 4A New Bern High School under the great coach Stephen Lovette. He taught me from the start to always love the kids first, be involved in their lives (school,families, extra curriculars) because once they know you genuinely love and care about them then they will respect and work even harder for you on the field. From there, I was afforded an opportunity to work alongside my mentor Gary Smith at Lenoir CC. Smitty really pushed me as a coach and wanted me to take ownership of working with our hitters and infielders. I would have to say, even though we didn’t have a successful season that year at LCC, I learned more about myself & my coaching style while working with Gary. From there Coach Smith and Coach Shelly Barnes (LCC Athletic Director) really helped me find the right opportunity to continue on into my next chapter as a coach, which was to become a varsity head coach in NC. While at West Stokes in 21-22, many challenges seemed to keep finding our club and we kept finding ways to overcome it and remain successful with a 19-6 record and a conference championship. I was an outsider brought in to do a job and maintain a level of success that West Stokes and unfortunately not all the previous members who laid the foundation appreciated my efforts or style of coaching. I don’t take that personal or hold any grudges, as I am from a small town myself in Western MD and know that type of culture very well. I am happy to walk away from King with great memories and friendships.

East Carteret 2023 baseball, what should the fans know about this year’s club?

This year’s team is very young & athletic. We like to run and take the extra bases when we can! This group is gritty and never counts themselves out no matter the score!

What’s one thing you have learned about East Carteret since taking the job?

I learned right away that this East Carteret community is unrivaled by anything I have ever witnessed. These players (Senior through Freshman) all created a brotherhood through last years tragedy and nothing has been able to break that bond (success or adversity)

What’s the strength of this year club?

We feel like our strength is our athleticism. We like to run and as a roster we are very interchangeable depending on who we have on the bump that particular day.

What are some big games on the schedule for Mariners?

Non Conference- we want to win our county, so we want to be successful against West Carteret and Croatan HS
Conference- We want Northside Pinetown. They won the conference last year so we know we have to go knock them off to take this conference back over.

What’s your best coaching memory up to this moment?

Opening day this year at home against Richlands- our guys played from behind all night and never quit..we were down 8-6 in the bottom of the 7th, when Senior Brody Nelson banged in the winning run to walk it off to get us to a 1-0 start to the season.

Below I’m going to list adjectives, list the player on the 2023 roster who it describes:

Leader: Jonathan Piner

Gamer: Brodie Nelson

Bulldog: Jacob Nelson

Selfless: Bodie Goodwin

Competitor: Alex Doans

Stay tuned for another exciting article coming up next week..