Getting Louisville’s girls basketball team back to a state championship was going to be a chore for new coach Fred Morris but he was going to do everything in his power to do it this year.
The longtime basketball coach had already won a state championship a few years ago at Neshoba Central and knew the ingredients it took to win a ring. The same could be said for several of the Lady Wildcat basketball players that were on last year’s team and were returning for another year.
The Lady Wildcats ended their season just short of getting back to that goal of a championship as they lost in the second round of the Class 4A state tournament, but Morris was proud of his team’s effort most of the year. They just didn’t do enough to get the job done in the biggest of games.
“We had our moments where I felt we played well but there was just inconsistency in terms of execution and effort,” Morris said. “We let some close games against some good teams like New Site, Harrison Central and Choctaw Central get away. We just didn’t make plays when they needed to be played and sometimes with a new coach and a new system it takes some time to adjust.”
Earlier last week, LHS blew through its first round opponent in Shannon with a convincing 74-42 win, but Ripley was waiting on the road in round two and the Lady Wildcats met their match as they fell 55-49. It ended the season at 19-9 and they were the No. 2 team in Region 4 losing three times on the year to newly implemented 4A team Choctaw County who won the district title.
Just as they did last year, the Lady Wildcats will lose some key players on this year’s team that will be hard to replace like Ajira Thompkins, Jalen Ingram, Amaria Pruitt and Kameron Rogers. The good news is they bring back two of the best players on the team with standout guard Areyanna Hunter who averaged a team best 18.9 points a game this year and Kiersten Ball who had 8.5 points a game.
“It’s going to be built around Ball and Hunter. We’ve just got to find pieces to build around those players. we’re just going to challenge players to become great 4A players,” Morris said. “The work that we put in during the offseason will be key.”
On the boys side of things, the Wildcats were also breaking in a new coach in Kylan Tippett who was on staff a year ago but promoted to head coach this year. Tippett was already behind the eight ball early in the year because many of his players were playing football and they arrived late and had very little practice time to get them ready.
The team started 9-3 on the year and finished 16-10 but were 5-5 in Region 4 which dropped them to fourth in the district heading into the tournament. However, they were primed for a run as they knocked off No. 1 seed Kosciusko who went undefeated in the regular season in conference play and advanced to the championship where they lost to Choctaw Central as well.
After beating Shannon 59-55 in the first round last week, the Wildcats had to travel to Corinth and lost 74-56 to fall short of the quarterfinals. Tippett believes that a tougher schedule early would have helped.
“We started off playing well against teams that we knew that we can beat and when we got those challenges we saw what we need to work on,” Tippett said. “It helped me see that I probably need to play some better competition early so we’re tested and we’ve already been through it.”
Vasedrick Culbertson will be a big loss for the team next season as the senior guard had a great year leading being second on the team in points at 14.3. They’ll also lose Drea Shumaker, NIselbyion Kirk and Jy’keviious Hibbler, but several key players return.
Tyrell Thames returns as the leader in scoring with 14.6 points a game and Ty Cooper is a big body returning that should push for a double-double average.
Tippett is just proud to have seen his team grow this year and was happy that he got to grow along with them in his first year as head coach. Now, it’s time for round two.
“I really found out a lot about these guys and myself as a coach,” Tippett said. “I saw that they really do have the potential to be a great basketball program. They have the heart, the want to and the skill set. We’ve just got to put it all together.
“We’ve got a really good group of guys coming back who was my core group of players that went undefeated with me in junior high a few years ago. I’m confident that the guys coming up are ready to step up.”
