Justin Childs came back to his hometown of Louisville four years ago with a vision to put Winston Academy basketball on the map.
The former Grace Christian basketball star grew up watching the Patriot program from childhood through his high school years before starting a career in coaching at Riverside. WA needed a young, energetic head coach to help rebuild the once-proud program which had fallen on hard times, and it has taken some hard work to get stability back.
The Patriots won four games Childs’ first season and made a big jump to 15 in 2016-17 before falling to 8-22 last season. Childs wasn’t afraid to challenge his players with a tough schedule last season as they took lumps against Madison-Ridgeland Academy, Winona, Lamar, Nanih Waiya, Kirk Academy, Choctaw County and others along with a very challenging MAIS 2-AAA schedule that included Heritage Academy, Leake Academy, Starkville Academy and Canton Academy.
It’s made for a very seasoned 2018-19 team that includes eight seniors with all five starters being in their final year.
“They’ve really built a chemistry over the years where they’re comfortable playing with each other and know their tendencies,” Childs said. “One thing we like to do systematically is push the fast break and limit the transition on defense. We want to play fast but under control and I think having players that have played in that system for many years helps us.”
Key players return on this year’s team including Collin Mills who averaged 15.8 points per game last season as a junior. He and fellow senior Blake Peterson were among four players that spent the entire offseason working in the gym to prepare for the new season.
Peterson is one of Childs’ top defensive players returning who had four blocks per game, 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks a game last season. Noah Dempsey is another player that Childs is excited about in his senior year after scoring 6.6 points last season, pulling down 3.5 rebounds, dishing out 3.5 assists and stealing 1.8 balls a game.
Now that the football players return with the group already in the gym, Childs likes the nucleus of his team.
“We’ve had some really good practices for the first part of the season and it’s the practices we want to have going into our first games,” Childs said. “There’s been a lot of intensity and senior leadership going on and we’re making sure we’re going on the level we want to be at this point.”
The schedule won’t be easy again for Childs and his team and that’s by design as he prepares to play in what he calls the SEC West of private school basketball in Mississippi. WA has East Webster, Riverside, Nanih Waiya, Noxapater, Oak Hill and Kirk Academy among non-conference games.
Despite the tough schedule, he believes that his team could have its best record in years before the district set even begins in mid-December with Canton Academy on Dec. 11. When those games arrive, the Patriots could be as ready as any of the teams in their district.
“If there was a preseason media poll, we’d probably be third or fourth in our district,” Childs said. “We played Heritage to a 39-33 game at MRA camp and played really well against MRA and other teams down there. Each year we’re closing the gap between those really good teams and I think we’re set for a big leap this season.
“We have a lot of things to improve on to get to the point of competing for championships, but this group is certainly capable of it.”
The Patriots begin their season for real on Saturday when they host Starkville Christian with junior varsity games beginning at 4:30 p.m.
