If the Union County girls basketball program wants to get back to the Class AA state playoffs this season, it will be under the direction of new coach Crystal Beach.

Lady Panthers head coach Crystal Beach

Coming from Class AAAAA’s Buford High, where winning seems to be a common theme among all sports, boys and girls, Beach has brought a winning mentality to Blairsville.

After taking over in June, Beach said she was impressed by how quickly the team, particularly the seniors, embraced her and bought in to her vision.

“The reality is, it’s pretty straight forward: you’re either on board or you’re not and everybody jumped on board,” Beach said. “They love Coach Garrett, but they were excited too.”

Corey Garrett, who coached the team the past two seasons, is now the head boys coach.

While she said moving from metro Atlanta to the north Georgia mountains has been a “big adjustment,” Beach said the school and community has been “warm and welcoming” since she arrived.

She has also found some similarity to where she grew up in Culpepper, Virginia.

Beach played softball at Virginia Tech and has been coaching basketball and other sports for more than a decade in some capacity.

While this may be her first year as a high school basketball head coach, she won two state titles as coach of the Buford volleyball squad.

After taking over the Lady Panthers, Beach said there was immediate focus and dedication to buy-in to the new system.

“They’ve been so coachable, especially the seniors,” Beach said. “I’m so proud of them.”

As to the upcoming season, Beach said the team has the makeup to surprise a lot of people.

“We’ve got senior leadership, young talent, and we are deeper than you might think,” Beach said. “We’re going to take it game-by-game, but I think this is a really great group of talented young women.”

The Lady Panthers are slated to kickoff the 2019-20 season tonight at Towns County.