As one team rebuilds, the other looks to make a run at a district title. The Faith Middle School boys and girls basketball teams open their seasons Thursday at home against Marshall/Baker.
Last year marked the first year in which both teams played against schools in the Muscogee County School District. The girls finished an impressive 6-6 while the boys finished 4-8 due to a couple of heartbreaking losses. However, the Lady Warriors made an early playoff exit.
Hoping to have many core players back this year, girls coach Mikki Raines lost most of them over the offseason due to their Families PCSing.
“We’ve got a lot of new kids,” Raines said. “We’re a very young team this year. This is going to be a challenging year.
“You had that possibility of Families moving away. All the kids that were practicing with me over the summer are gone.”
Ten new players joined the team, seven of which Raines said have no previous playing experience. This season, she said, will be about teaching her players the fundamentals in order to equip them for high school basketball.
Anissa Carpenter and Morgan Lee make up the only returning players from last year’s squad. Both are eighth-graders, and Raines said she will look to them to be the leaders of the team. She said both players were disappointed in their performance in the playoffs.
“They want to win a couple of more games than they did last year (in the playoffs),” Raines said. “Hopefully, midway through the season will be the turning point for us.”
Meanwhile, boys basketball coach Karl Ivey has four returning players and more incoming talent to comprise a team he thinks will bring Faith a winning season.
“We’ve got a lot of talent to compete in the league this year,” Ivey said. “We, as coaches, just have to put it together.”
Despite losing eight players from last year’s squad, Ivey said he has eight eighth-graders on his roster and two forwards who will help the Warriors match up more in the post, something Ivey said his team didn’t have last year.
“If we would have had them last year, we would have done a lot better than we did,” he said.
“Our goal is to win more games than we did last year. To do that, we need to bring more toughness to our team.”
