Name: Stevie Green

Age: 27

Residence: Washington

After his outstanding multi-sport career at Washington High School ended with graduation in 2014, Stevie Green wanted to leave and stay gone for a while. He played football, then coached it at Fayetteville State after starting at Elizabeth City State, then worked in Apex after leaving Fayetteville. He came home this fall to teach exceptional children at WHS and coach football, girls basketball and track.

1. What do you like most about being back home?

I’m either at school, on a field or in a gym or at my house, so I’d say the slower pace. I don’t get out much, but when I do, I like that there’s no traffic and that I usually don’t have to wait in line wherever I am. Washington’s pace fits me a lot better than the city pace did. I also enjoy being around when my family needs me.

2. What childhood memories of Washington stand out and why did you come back?

It seemed like I was always outside playing a sport or riding bikes with my friends when I was younger. I was busy with football or summer basketball and decided I wanted to go away to college to have a different experience. I didn’t come home much, maybe a day or two, but the challenge of building the girls basketball program drew me back.

3. You had an outstanding football career at Fayetteville State and were a Pam Pack assistant this past fall. Why basketball?

I played football because I was good at it and enjoyed it, but basketball has always been my favorite sport. I can’t play football anymore, but I can still get up and down a basketball court. 

4. What’s been the biggest challenge so far?

Teaching a majority of the team how to play. We have good numbers, but not much experience. I feel like I can build this program how I want to and it will be fun when success comes, because there hasn’t been any for a while. The best part is to watch their skills improve. We are so much better than we were three months ago and I know I made the right call coming home.

5. What are the positive things about Washington in your opinion?

Washington has more recreational offerings for kids than they used to. Rec sports is a great way to introduce sports to kids at a young age and having something to do keeps them out of trouble. I’ve grown to appreciate being near the water and the fact that it moves at the right pace. I don’t know who or where I would be without Washington. I have great memories of growing up here and am looking forward to being around as an adult.

Israel ordered more evacuations from parts of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, and from Jabalya and Beit Lahia in the north, as it widens operations in the besieged enclave, despite dire warnings from aid groups and allies.

In Rafah, the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of displaced people for months, terrified residents packed up to flee once again. Western Rafah was “visibly emptying before our eyes,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said on X. A resident of the Al-Awda neighborhood, meters away from the evacuation zone, told The Washington Post that the streets were emptying out.

SHAWNEE — Washington’s Tristen Babbitt bent to the ground, simultaneously overcome with emotion and bracing for the dogpile that was about to flatten him in front of the pitcher’s mound of Ed Skelton Field.

The celebration of a Class 3A state championship three-peat engulfed the Warriors’ pitcher after the final out of a 4-0 win over Perry on Saturday, and no player deserved to be the centerpiece of the festivities more than Babbitt.

The senior left-hander pitched a complete-game shutout, allowing four hits and three walks with eight strikeouts in his final high school game, and the emotion of it all was strong.

“My dad passed away when I was 14,” Babbitt said, tears welling in his eyes. “I wrote his death day on my arm today. I was thanking God for him. 

“This is such a great team. We grew up with each other. There’s no better coaching staff or team that I could ask for.”

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Effectively mixing his pitches between a fastball, slider and changeup, Babbitt didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning and never allowed a Perry baserunner past second. He got good support from an aggressive offense, even if it wasn’t producing a lot of solid contact.

Washington took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning when Dax McCaskill’s sacrifice fly scored Mayson Thomas. In the sixth, the Warriors took advantage of Perry’s defensive miscues to score two more runs while getting just one hit — a single by Liam Keltner that snuck just past the infield dirt.

And McCaskill scored the final run, reaching with a single and moving to third on a hit-and-run groundout before being driven in by Easton Berglan.

“I didn’t think we swung it great up and down the lineup, but we put it in play at the right times,” coach Jeff Kulbeth said. “We’re so aggressive on the basepaths, and you know how it is when you play in these games, anytime there’s a bobbled ball or an error or something, it just magnifies.

“We were just fortunate to take advantage.”

Washington became just the fifth team in Class 3A and above to win three consecutive baseball championships, and the most recent of the group since Saturday’s host, Shawnee, took three straight 5A titles in 2015-17.

“With what our kids have done, the ability to just stay with the process, stay the course, buy in to what we’ve done as a program — when our leaders do that, the rest follow,” Kulbeth said. “Is it easy? No, it’s not easy. But it sure is incredible.”