Abbeville Basketball Teams Contending For Region Titles
Abbeville's leading scorer is senior Jaden Baylor, who averaged 16.8 points and 7.0 rebounds last season. He is averaging 20 points and seven boards this season.
By David Shelton
Senior Writer
Abbeville – A six-point loss in the Class A state championship game last March has fueled the fire for this year’s Abbeville High boys basketball team.
The Panthers are again one of the top teams in Class A and have their sights set on another championship opportunity. Abbeville has picked up where they left off by winning 10 of their first 12 games this season, which includes an 8-0 start in region 1-A play. The two non-region losses came to AAA Belton-Honea Path by eight points and AAAAA Greenwood by one point.
Head coach Doug Belcher is in his 14th season at Abbeville and says this year has the potential to end better than last season did.
“The way we ended last year certainly hurt and the guys that were on that team that we have back really want to earn another shot,” Belcher said. “It hurt, which it should. We use it as motivation. We didn’t play our best in the biggest game so our goal is to get back and try to play our best game.”
Belcher returns four seniors from last year’s team and relies on a host of underclassmen to contribute.
“Our seniors are good leaders and we need that from them,” Belcher said. “We play a lot of guys and several of them are sophomores. We need depth with the way we like to play pressure man to man defense. We like to run the floor so depth is important.”
Two of the seniors are in the starting lineup. Back as the leading scorer is senior Jaden Baylor, who averaged 16.8 points and 7.0 rebounds last season. He is averaging 20 points and seven boards this season.
Senior Jaylen Baylor was the leading rebounder last season, pulling down 9.3 boards per game. He is averaging 9.4 rebounds and 8.2 points per game this winter. Sophomore Jamiyus McManus scores 11 points and grabs 4.5 rebounds per game. Junior Cory Calhoun averages 4.3 points per game. Senior Darius Riley comes off the bench and contributes 7.5 points per game. The other senior is Quatavius Silas.
Sophomore Jamerion Williams is coming off the bench and is scoring 14 points per game. He scored 23 points in the opener. Junior Corde Hadden is averaging 9/5 points off the bench. Sophomores Jamiere Killingsworth, Jaiden Moss. DeWilliam McCouller and Tre Jackson round out the roster and come off the bench as well.
“This team works hard and they know we have to continue to get better. We’re not where we need to be quite yet and we want to peak at the right time,” Belcher said. “We have to be relentless and focus on one game at a time. We can’t look ahead and we have to be ready for every challenge. We know we will see some good teams ahead so we have to maintain our focus and effort.”
The girls team also is in region title contention. They won six of their first eight region games and are locked in a battle for second as of Jan. 17.
Freshman Amiya McManus leads the team in scoring at 10 points per game. Junior Lauryn Murray is averaging 8.6 points and 10.3 rebounds per game while junior Ar’Naisyah Gray adds 7.3 points and 13 rebounds per game.
