by Rusty Ellis
Gordonsville Tigerettes
The Gordonsville Tigerettes’ goals before the 2022-23 season were relatively simple: make the district semifinals, and if they accomplished that, they knew they’d be in the region semifinals.
They fell a game short of that ultimately, falling to Red Boiling Springs in the District 7-A Play-In game. Now head coach Jake Dillard will be tasked with taking another young team into the new season, as they look to regroup and attack that same goal this year.
“I still believe the same as last year, if we can make it past the play-in game, we’ll be in the region semifinals,” Dillard said. “Last year wasn’t what we wanted, but any time you lose your point guard in Class A basketball, it’s really hard to rebound from that…we only lost three kids from last year, and we return four that were on the All-Freshman team, but we’ll still be really young.”
Point guard Kali Underwood is back, as her concussion in the second meeting with Smith County is part of what made the back-half of the season a lot tougher on the Tigerettes. Other sophomores that Dillard expects big things out of includes Kaka Roberts, Makenize Herron and Molly Storie, and lone senior Kamara Young is expected to hold down the paint.
“She played well at the end of last year,” Dillard said. “We kind of revamped our offense midway through the season because of how well she was playing…Lucy Manor has really come on as of late, and has played her way into some minutes. Right now, the kids are buying in to what we’re doing, and that’s all we can ask for.”
The district is expected to be as tough as ever, and more so than in recent years, it feels like it’s pretty open from the second spot down to fifth.
And Dillard believes the same, that it all will come down to who can consistently play their best ball in January and February.
“Pickett’s going to be a handful for everyone in our district,” Dillard said. “You look at the talent that’s not here anymore, Claire Fleming from RBS, Abby Head and Briley Burchett from Clay, Mattie Bush from Clarkrange…that play-in game is going to be a tough one, you really don’t want to be there when two through five is that wide-open. Anyone can legitimately beat anyone on any given night.”
The goal remains the exact same as it has been in year’s past, as Dillard says he wants to make it beyond the play-in game, make it to the region semifinals and then see if a deeper run is possible from there.
“That alone would make the season a success,” Dillard said. “Next year, we’ll be returning everyone except one kid…we need to have a little confidence early in the season, but I stand by what I said last year. I tell them every day that if you get to the region semis, anything can happen. We’ve just got to stay focused because our whole goal is to make it to the region semis and potentially get a substate game.”
Gordonsville Tigers
Gordonsville entered last season with expectations that they could compete for the District 7-A Championship, and while they finished in second in the regular season, a third-place finish in the district tournament set them up for a tough region matchup at East Robertson where their season came to an end.
It still ended up being a good season for head coach Greg Bibb and his staff, even if they fell just short of their overall goal.
“I thought we were playing our best basketball near the end of January, and then the injuries began to hit us,” Bibb said. “We still competed and competed in the district tournament…our goal was to get to 20 wins and we got to 19, and we wanted to win a district and region championship and we left those hanging out there. Those are back on our board this year.”
The Tigers return a solid group of experienced players, highlighted by Brodie Sykes who Bibb has manning the paint this season. Add in J Foster once he comes back from Football, as well as Tucker Smith, Tristan Wood and Clinton Pope, and Bibb has plenty of reasons to set high expectations for this year’s rendition of the Tigers.
“After replacing our four players we lost last year, we’re going to be relying on these kids a lot this year,” Bibb said. “We’ve also got four freshmen that’ll see time as well…Brodie Sykes is going to be our leader this year, he was our second-leading scorer last year and he’s a joy to coach. He can do a lot of different things for us. It’s going to be a little bit more time before we get J back…Tucker Smith is one of the highest IQ kids I’ve ever coach, we just need him to be more confident this year. Tristan Wood will be a senior for us, and we’ll need him to be more assertive for us this season. I’ve coached Clinton Pope since the seventh grade and it’s unbelievable to see his growth from then to now.”
Much like the girls’ side of the league, the boys side will be as wide-open as it’s been in quite awhile, meaning every night, any team could beat anybody else in the district.
For Bibb, being successful in this district begins with preparing for the other team’s best players, and while there might not be any Mr. Basketball-level players at the moment, there’s solid depth top-to-bottom.
“You look around at every team in the district and you see five guys that can shoot and defend and do a little bit of everything,” Bibb said. “You know what you’re going to get with Clay and Pickett, Rob Edwards has set the standard at Clay to the point that they expect to win every time they step on the floor. Pickett returns just about everyone, their main scoring core is back…Red Boiling Springs has a group of kids that’s played together since they were freshmen, so they know how to play well together. We had to go to overtime to beat Clarkrange last year, and I think they’ll be much better this year. It’ll be a dogfight night in and night out.”
Bibb’s goals for this year’s Tigers are clear: win 20 games and give yourself a chance to make a deep postseason push.
“It’s been a long time since this program has had 20 wins,” Bibb said. “We’ve gotten close, but it’s time to get there and take that next step…We want to win a district championship, we want to win a region championship and we want to host a substate game. We think we have the ability to do that, and we know it won’t be easy, but I think our schedule will prepare us and set us up to be ready for those games.”