Blackville – By Jefferson Davis Academy winning the SCISA 8-man football state championship, the Jefferson Davis boys basketball team was affected in an adverse way.
With Anthony Reitenour the head coach of both teams and most of the basketball team having played football, practice for the basketball season didn’t start quite on time.
“We had one Sunday practice before the first game,” Reitenour said.
The Raiders have handled the late start pretty well. They won five of their first 15 games and were 2-2 Region 3-Class A.
“We’ve been kind of playing to the level of the competition all year,” Reitenour said. “We've done pretty well against 1A schools. We've just been streaky. We had a lot of 3-point, 4-point 6-point games, shooting ourselves in the foot.
“It took a while to get the football rust off and to get in a groove. Developing a chemistry took a little longer to come together than I'd like.”
Jefferson Davis returned two starters from last year’s team that went 14-12. They are juniors Colson Loadholt and Nasir Void.
Loadholt was averaging 16.0 points per game to go with 6.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 3.9 steals. He led the team in scoring, assists and steals.
Void is the leading rebounder with a 12.9 average. He is averaging a double-double with a 13.7 scoring average.
` Freshman Reese Still is a starter averaging 7.4 points, 2.6 steals and 2.2 assists. Junior Payton Payne is averaging 5.7 points and 7.9 rebounds.
Senior Connor Loadholt and junior James Grubbs share time in the other starting spot. Loadholt was averaging 3.9 points and 1.5 steals, while Grubbs was averaging 3.3 points and 4.3 rebounds.
Senior Hunter Zorn and junior Brian Montejano are part of the rotation.
Reitenour believes the Raiders are starting to come together as the playoffs draw near.
“We're progressing in the right way as we’re getting toward the playoffs,” he said. “We’re getting there as a team. I think come playoff time we’ll be ready to upset someone.
We’ve got to do a good job of eliminating turnovers, and we’re getting there. We’ve been misreading each other a lot, so a lot of it has been carelessness. It’s not necessarily the other team forcing us into turnovers. Our offense took a while to get going. We need to keep taking good shots, and that’s improving.”
JDA GIRLS IN REBUILDING YEAR
The Jefferson Davis girls basketball team is in rebuilding mode for a multitude of reasons. First, head coach Caren Gleaton and assistant Shanya McMillan didn’t officially take charge of the team until the middle of November. Once the season started, JDA only had six girls on the season.
“Unfortunately, we are definitely in a rebuilding year,: Gleaton said. “Last year there were 14 girls playing varsity basketball. This year we had some decide not to participate and we had a large group graduate last year which has put us with low numbers on the roster.
““(Becoming head coach so late) really put us behind the 8-ball on conditioning, which has added to our limitations.”
Sill, the Lady Raiders have managed to win two games in the early going and were 1-3 in region play. Senior Gyllian Googe is the only returning starter from last season. The other senior is Reece Brown. The other four players are all juniors in Sydney Owens, Peyton Hutto, Madeline Respass and Macey Respass.
Gleaton has no complaints with the effort being put forth by her team.
“They are playing as well as they can with the low numbers we have,” she said. “It is difficult to play our style of play with the numbers we have. Pressing on defense is our style but obviously with the numbers we have it isn't ideal to run because we have to stay fresh and out of foul trouble. It is frustrating for all of us but they are a resilient group of girls and a joy to spend time with.”
Gleaton has been pointing out to her team that on any given night a victory is possible.
“It is what makes basketball such a fun sport to coach and play. We will definitely need to continue to work on conditioning each opportunity we get and stay out of foul trouble. With the new 5-foul/quarter rule, we also need to take better advantage of free throw opportunities. If we accomplish that, anything is possible.”
MANNY WRIGHT IS NEW JDA BASEBALL HEAD COACH
Manny Wright has been named the new baseball head coach for Jefferson Davis.
This will be Wright’s first time coaching at the high school level, but he’s the owner of the Orangeburg Riverhawks, a travel team organization in which he coaches the 9-and-under and 15u teams.
Wright said going into the high school ranks felt right to him.
“After speaking with Coach Anthony and hearing what his vision was for JDA, I was sold,” Wright said. “He wants a dominant athletic program and I'm all about being dominant and winning. JDA is a great place with great people and a place where I can develop student-athletes and win now.”
Reitenour said Wright simply feels like the right fit.
“He fits the mold in every way in what we’re trying to do, trying to change the culture. We’re looking for him to do long-term stuff with the program. I’m excited to see what he can do with the program.”
Wright takes over a team that went 11-9 last season, but reached the Class A state championship series under Derrick Antley. The Raiders lost to undefeated Richard Winn in the championship series.
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