In every sense of the word, the just concluded basketball season was all about rebuilding for the Winston Academy girls and boys teams.
Both teams graduated impact players and lots of them and both were breaking in new coaches after several seasons of the same regime. So after having breakthrough seasons for each team in the 2018-19 campaign, it was understandable that there would be some growing pains this year.
The girls team competed for the district and north state titles each of the last two seasons and came up short against the mighty Leake Academy Lady Rebels. Head coach Moe Reed had coached the Lady Patriots for a few seasons but decided to take the job at Heritage Academy this season and WA hired former West Point coach Kelley Greer to lead the charge.
The Lady Pats finished the season 10-16 and went 1-9 in district play with a final loss coming to the hands of Reed and Heritage at the district tournament last week 57-49. In the final game of the year, Hailey Bradford had 15 points, Lana Boatner scored 13 points and D’Shiya Jones had 11.
Despite the loss, Greer thought that her team finished strong.
“We had a good year,” Greer said. “When you look back on each game, we grew as a team. We learned a lot from this season. Some games we lost we should have won, but this was a learning experience for these girls. They stepped it up and they understand where we have to go from here. They’re willing to put the work in, I know that.”
Only one senior graduates from this year’s team as Coley Disbrow finished out her career. It was Disbrow’s first year to play basketball since transferring from Central Academy several years ago and playing softball the last few seasons.
So that means that Greer is returning practically the entire team with all five starters coming back. That includes underclassmen like Bradford and Betsy Karson Hatcher as well as upper classmen and experienced players Boatner, Jones, Micha Carr and Bella Hillyer.
Greer will also add a strong nucleus of ninth grade players and a couple of eighth graders from the junior high district runners up.
“My ninth graders are very athletic and hungry to win. I believe next year and even the next year are going to be really good,” Greer said. “My starters improved all year fundamentally and they’re all back next season. This summer we can get a little more advanced. We’re still doing conditioning and weights in the offseason every day.”
The boys squad had an even bigger rebuild as over half of the team graduated from a year ago and head coach Justin Childs went to take the job at Delta Streets Academy. Former Starkville Academy assistant Jordan Graham was the man for the task as the Patriots hired him to take over and it was a test for both players and coach.
WA ended the year 3-20 and lost all 10 district games. The record wasn’t indicative of how much better the team was by the end of the year, however.
“The main takeaway was the growth that we had. Everybody that played either wasn’t on the team last year or didn’t play or they barely played,” Graham said. “We had to start from square one and rebuild and I saw them grow up throughout the year. It didn’t always translate to the win column, but we grew.”
There was also only one senior that graduates from the boys as Cage Palmer finishes out his career at WA and he’ll continue on at East Mississippi Community College on the football team.
Palmer was one of the team’s top scorers, but the Patriots will return standout players like Brylee Wall and Johnson Wells. The talent is there for this team to make a major jump next season and it will be all about how they prepare in the offseason.
“This summer is going to be very important for us so I’m looking for us to continue to get better,” Graham said. “As a first-year coach, I felt like I did alright. We did a good job establishing how we’ll carry ourselves and represent Winston Academy. This offseason is crucial. Hopefully we’ll use this offseason to learn each other on a personal level.”
