Alamance County Class of 2026 athletes head to colleges across region

Alamance County’s Class of 2026 is sending a wide freshman class of athletes to college programs, with the latest roundup naming players from Alamance Christian, Burlington Christian Academy, Cummings, Eastern Alamance, Southeast Alamance, Southern Alamance, Western Alamance and Williams. The list stretches across volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball, baseball, football, track and field, wrestling, golf, swimming and diving, and cheerleading, turning one summer signing cycle into a countywide snapshot of who is producing the next wave of college-bound athletes.

The names themselves tell the story of how broad that pipeline has become. Maci VanDeventer, Selah Johnson, Holden Yakola, Anthony Valdez, Cooper Kelly, Lofton Gonzalez, Cohen Payne, Kenan Kim, D’Anna Cotton, Diamond Moore, Kayden Manning, McKenzie Blevins, Hannah Batista, Maci Link, Maddy Loranger, Aubrey Dial, Jarrett Newell, Kasen McGinnis, Zack Merchel, John Wittig, Tyler Westbrooks, Christian Vieau, Logan Grimshaw, Ayden Brown, Clara LaChapelle, Shaniya Paylor, Joel Samari, Anthony James, Victoria Vazquez, Spechell Carr, Kiyah Jeffries Brown, Nathan McNeal, Camden Edwards, Brantley Messick, Curtis Evans, Michaela Bentley, Omar Rushing, Bubba Sims, Colby Elliott, Nathan Williams-Medley, Cassidy Gray and Devon Joseph all appear in the Class of 2026 roll call.

The destinations show that Alamance County athletes are not funneling into just one type of program. Some are headed close to home or into familiar regional settings at Greensboro College, Guilford College, Averett University, Barton College, Brevard College, Campbell University, Guilford Technical Community College and North Carolina Wesleyan University. Others are moving farther out to schools such as South Carolina, Jacksonville State University, Gardner-Webb University and Bryant University, while additional commitments point to Pfeiffer University, Converse University, Wingate University, Meredith College, Francis Marion University, North Greenville University and Chowan University. The list also includes junior-college and community-college routes such as Cape Fear Community College, Catawba Valley Community College, Lenoir Community College, Patrick & Henry Community College, Robeson Community College and Rockingham Community College.

That spread matters in Alamance County because high school sports here operate inside one of the state’s largest public-school systems. Alamance-Burlington School System serves more than 22,000 students across 38 schools and ranks as the 15th-largest public school district in North Carolina. The county’s seven traditional ABSS high schools were also placed together in the Mid-Carolina Conference under the NCHSAA realignment cycle, giving local programs a shared league structure that keeps county rivalries and recruiting visibility front and center.

The college-signing roundup has become a recurring part of that calendar. Alamance News published similar destination lists for the Classes of 2024 and 2025, showing that this is not a one-year surge but a steady annual output from county schools. Eastern Alamance also used a November 2024 signing post to praise its student-athletes, their families and the coaches who helped them reach the college level, a sentiment that fits a county where athletics has become one of the clearest bridges from local high schools to campuses in North Carolina and beyond.