It is officially basketball season for all four Marion County schools, with several of the teams looking very competitive to start the young season.
The Columbia Academy Lady Cougars (3-1) are off to a quality start and are primed to make a run at a state title. While they lost in the first round of the MAIS AAA State Tournament last year, they only lost by four points to then-defending state champ Kirk Academy and graduated only one player.
The Lady Cougars have five players 5-foot-9 or taller, with two over 6-foot, and Morgan Jones has already accepted a Division I scholarship (full details in the Saturday edition of The Columbian-Progress).
CA beat Jackson Academy 35-26 Oct. 29 to kick off the season at East Rankin before falling to Leake Academy, the 2018 AAA state champs, 52-24 the following day.
The Lady Cougars bounced back in tremendous fashion Nov. 8 in a 43-3 win over Salem on the road. Then they knocked off Central Private 53-23 Saturday in Central, La.
Head coach Dale Watts said he believes the Lady Cougars are a very good team with several starters returning, but they do have some holes — as does every team, he added.
“We’re progressing and trying to find ways to plug the holes and have to be careful we don’t become one-dimensional,” he said. “There’s no doubt we’ve got a big team. With that size sometimes those smaller, faster teams give us trouble, and we’re trying to work on that.”
Watts added that with the limited roster size, the Lady Cougars can’t practice in 5-on-5 situations and simply need to play a lot of games to work through the growing pains.
The Cougars (2-0), meanwhile, have been great to start the season with two road wins but have a few more holes to fill than their counterparts.
The Cougars return three juniors — Ras Pace, Tate Duncan and Ethan Stringer — who all played large roles last year and have added another junior in Robert Johnson, who Watts believes is coming around.
Watts said Duncan has had two really good games to lead the Cougars, but the team’s numbers are down this season. He said he has six “high school” players, with three freshmen — Hays Carley, Cody Fortenberry and Jeffrey Pennington — contributing, and it has been a struggle to find some consistency.
“I feel pretty good about our team. We may be limited in some areas, but I think these guys have played for me for a few years and know what we want and expect,” he said. “There may be some times that our youngness beats us, and we’re small. But I really feel good about them, and I’m excited about the year.”
Watts plans to adjust the Cougars’ playing style depending on the opponent and said they will be an “extreme team.”
“We’ll go extremely fast or extremely slow,” he said. “We’ll have to utilize that.”
The Cougars kicked off the season with 69-43 win over Salem Nov. 8 and topped Central Private 57-43.
Both Columbia Academy squads hosted Sumrall Tuesday (results unavailable) and will take on Central Private in a rematch Saturday night.
