East Hamilton Personnel Losses Boost Other 5-AAA Hoop Teams

Bunton, Brower, Howard Now At Walker Valley, Ringgold, Bradley

  • Wednesday, October 1, 2014
  • Larry Fleming

CLEVELAND, Tenn. – East Hamilton’s loss has been solid gains for two other basketball teams in District 5-AAA and Ringgold, Ga.

One of the Hurricanes’ top players, Kenny Bunton, left the program two days after Rodney English replaced fired Michael Stone and transferred to Walker Valley where he will play for coach Bob Williams’ Mustangs.

“I took the job in March and two days later Kenny and I had a talk,” English said after Wednesday’s media day at the Mountain View Inn.

“He let me know about the possibility of him moving away. So, in a sense, I didn’t lose him because I never had him.”

Well, English might not think he “lost” Bunton, who will be a junior this season, but he sure won’t have Bunton’s stats this season: 12.5 points per game, 1.4 blocks and 9.3 rebounds, 5.6 coming on the defensive end.

Walker Valley will have them.

Three other Hurricanes, including starting guard Mac Brower, transferred to Ringgold (Ga.) High School. The other two were junior varsity players.

Brower, now a sophomore, was the Hurricanes’ No. 2 scorer behind Bunton with an 11.8-point average. He also dished out 3.7 assists and got 1.8 steals per contest in East Hamilton’s terribly disappointing season.

 “Those (personnel) losses don’t sting,” English said. “Those guys won six games last year. I like where East Hamilton is right now. It’s a good group of kids. I like the seniors we have coming back, although we’re putting them in roles they haven’t been asked to do before. They’ve handled those things so far.

“Kenny left and I haven’t looked back sense.”

Coach Derek Morris’ Lady Hurricanes lost their most promising player, eighth-grader Rhyne Howard, to Bradley Central’s Bearettes.

Howard, a 5-foot-11-inch freshman, is being asked to replace Bearettes senior point guard Chelsea Summars, whose career was cut short by a second torn ACL injury. Bradley Central also lost the district’s two most dominating post players, Division I signees Brooke Copeland (Florida) and Rebecca Reuter (Middle Tennessee State), the daughter of Bearettes coach Jason Reuter.

“Rhyne got to play the whole summer with us,” Reuter said. “I didn’t start her at point guard, but as we went along I could see she was our best ball-handler and passer as a freshman. That’s a compliment to Rhyne, but also shows a weakness we had after Chelsea’s injury.

“We knew the losses we would have, but we didn’t expect to lose Chelsea. I can tell you the good Lord shined on us when Rhyne and her mother decided to move to Bradley County.”

When the session with media ended, coaches and media polls were released for the boy’s and girls’ teams.

In the boy’s poll, Bradley Central and Cleveland tied for first in coaches voting and the Bears took first place in the media voting, just ahead of Ooltewah, which lost two varsity squad players – Dajuonta Ross and Miles Cothran when they decided to attend Brainerd. Following the 2012-13 season, the Owls lost promising youngster Darron Maston to Tyner Academy.

Coaches poll (Boys): Bradley and Cleveland tied for first and were followed by Ooltewah, Walker Valley, East Hamilton, McMinn County and Soddy-Daisy. Medial poll: Bradley Central, Ooltewah, Cleveland, East Hamilton, Walker Valley, McMinn County and Soddy-Daisy.

Coaches poll (Girls): Walker Valley, Bradley Central, Cleveland, McMinn County, Soddy-Daisy, Ooltewah, East Hamilton. Media poll: Bradley Central, Cleveland, Walker Valley, McMinn County, Soddy-Daisy, Ooltewah and East Hamilton.

This year’s girl’s race will be more wide open than in years, but the Bearettes will still be solid contenders and the title drive goes through Cleveland’s southside.

“I think there will be opportunities for other teams to step up and establish themselves,” Soddy-Daisy coach Drew Lyness said. “It will be exciting to see which teams do that, but Bradley is still going to be the team to beat, in my opinion.”

Each boys and girls coach spoke to the gathered media and most had not finalized a roster since the meeting occurred before many had held tryouts.

Bradley Central’s Chuck Clark: “Right now I don’t know what to expect for the upcoming season. Half of our guys are with the football team and I don’t know how many will survive the season, much less this week’s game against Ooltewah.”

Clark was only half joking.

The Bears have an experienced senior in Daniel Clark and his uncle the coach expects a lot of leadership from the 6-2 wing. Another stalwart will be sophomore Cole Copeland. Both players were selected all-district and all-region last season.

Coach Clark also mentioned Tucker Maroon, Ty Morgan, Bradley McCurdy and Peyton Parker as key players.

“After that it’s a hodge-podge,” he said. “I’m just praying for the football season to end.”

Cleveland’s Jason McCowan: “We don’t even have a gym and there’s no way I can talk about players. I do have a schedule.”

The Blue Raiders, who lost to Walker Valley, 68-63, in last season’s district tournament title game at East Hamilton, lost their best player, Kendrick Thompson, to graduation and it’s going to be hard to replace his offensive and defensive prowess.

Thompson scored 29 points against the Mustangs’ in the championship game after sharing the regular season player of the year honor with Ooltewah’s Ben Snider.

Thompson averaged 25 points, seven rebounds and five blocks last season.

“We’ll have to replace that with a collective effort,” McCowan said. “This is our second year without a gym (the old dome gymnasium was condemned and torn down, athletic director Eric Phillips is hopeful the new gym will be ready by December 2015), so our scheduling and organization will be better. We also hope there is less stress with having to play at Cleveland Middle School or our big games against Bradley and Walker Valley at Lee University.”

East Hamilton’s Rodney English: “We’re fairly athletic, we have decent size and the kids have been working real hard.”

English added that his players are “crazy about the upcoming season” and we saw a “lot of positives” during the summer work.

McMinn County’s Keith Elliott: “We struggled last season (3-22) to points on the board because of our size and lack of skills, like in shooting the basketball.”

Elliott returns five players and hopes they will be not only improved but play with more confidence playing the game of basketball. He called his squad a “solid group” and all students of the game. Also, eight of the players have played together since elementary school.

“But we’re playing in a 6-foot league,” said Elliott, who is in his 31st year of coaching, including 20 as a head coach. “We’ve got a few guys on the bench with good size, but they’re green as gourds.”

The key to his team’s success comes down to his players “playing smarter.”

Ooltewah’s Andre “Tank” Montgomery: He just threw his hands up before speaking.

“We’ve got a lot of guys with the football team and don’t expect to have them with us until December,” said Montgomery, who will be on his own this season after having current athletic director Jesse Nayadley by his side in a consultant’s role last year. “We had a good junior varsity team last year, but most of those guys are playing football, too.”

Montgomery admitted not having Nayadley bench-side would be a big adjustment, but added, “I can still pick his brain at school.”

Somehow Montgomery has to find someone, or multiple players, who can replace Snider’s 25-point per-game average. Snider, who is now at Tennessee Wesleyan College, also averaged 7.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists.

Soddy-Daisy coach Reid Daniels: “The key to our season is the commitment our guys have made to each other.”

In his second season as the Trojans’ coach, Daniels is pinning a lot of hope on returning standouts Tre Carter and Andy Wright, who has committed to play baseball at Middle Tennessee State.

“They’re both good athletes,” Daniels said. “I think they can also help with the younger players.”

Walker Valley assistant coach Bill Campbell: “We lost seven seniors and all five starters,” Campbell said.

So, the addition of Bunton is critical to the Mustangs making another run at district regular-season and tournament titles.

“Replacing 40 points from three starters is not going to be easy,” said Campbell, appearing for head coach Bob Williams, who was with a Mustang golfer at the TSSAA state tournament in Manchester. “We’re not sure what to expect. We had an up-and-down summer and weren’t sure our guys knew we were playing basketball.”

Campbell added the coaching staff isn’t sure how long it will take for this crop of players to gel.

GIRLS

Bradley Central’s Jason Reuter: “Like the other coaches I’m hoping my girls don’t get hurt during the football season. You know they’ve all got to drive back from those games.”

Reuter said of his 16 roster players, eight are with the volleyball team.

“And we’ve got tremendous size, but it’s all with the coaching staff,” he said.

For four years the Bearettes benefited from having two 6-2 post players and no other team in the district or region had an answer for that.

“So we’re going to see what life is like without the Twin Towers,” the veteran coach said. “I’m already hearing from friends that I’m going to find out how good a coach I am this year.”

The Bearettes lost five seniors, including Copeland and Reuter, and coach Reuter knew that was coming. Losing Summars, a senior this year, was an unforeseen circumstance. The Twin Towers led the Bearettes to back-to-back state tournament appearances and won district and region tournament titles all four years.

“If you guys (media) pick us to win this year, I wouldn’t want to go to Vegas with you,” Reuter said.

The addition of Howard to go along with experienced sophomores Emma Kate Brown and Halle Hughes will keep Bradley Central from being perceived as pushovers. Brown and Hughes saw significant playing time throughout last season, including the state tournament.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how the young girls have improved,” Reuter said.

Cleveland coach Mindy Kiser: “This is my group of girls. I’ve been with the seven seniors throughout and we’ve had a great summer; it was awesome. We’ve got 24 players in the program and that includes nine freshmen, girls who bring a lot of stuff. They’re kids who love to play basketball.”

Two important players are four-year starting point guard Jenna Scoggins and defensive anchor Sarah Crump. Kiser also pointed out that Amber Morman had a good summer and newcomer Emma Flowers, who plays volleyball for her mother/coach Patricia Flowers, could eventually turn into “one of the better players I’ve coached.”

East Hamilton coach Derek Morris: “Last year we were just awful (4-21). I look forward to seeing if we can improve on that. The girls worked hard this summer.”

Morris said he was “cautiously optimistic” about this season, one reason being the return of Kyndall Caudle.

Taking a cue from several other coaches who talked about a lack of size, Morris said, “We have not size at all, not even on the coaching staff.” Morris stands about 5-9.

This will be the Lady Hurricanes’ second season competing in 5-AAA after enjoying much success in 6-AA.

McMinn County coach Tim McPhail: “We went into the summer with a good feeling, but we lost two players to torn ACLs and another has a heart condition. That was hard.”

Alyssa Maddron and Madison Dispensa, both senior guards, are sidelined with the knee injuries and sophomore guard Jada Harper is slowed by a heart problem.

“We don’t know when we’ll get Jada back,” McPhail said. “We’re going to start on Nov. 11 having three girls with much playing experience. We’ve got five freshmen on the varsity and if we started today two would be in the starting lineup.”

McPhail expects his team to be athletic with good speed and the key to success will be making sure the young team improves on a daily basis.

“If we’re playing in January the same way we play in November, we’re going to lose a lot of games,” he said.

Ooltewah coach Jensen Morgan: “We’re going to try and hit the ground running. We’ve got all the size we need, but those girls are stuck with the volleyball team.”

Morgan, taking over the team from Donnie Mullins, who is now coaching the golf and track and field teams, said he’s trying to rebuild the girls’ basketball program. That will take the players to really buy into what he wants to do.

“It’s going to be a fresh start for everyone,” Morgan said.

Soddy-Daisy coach Drew Lyness: “We deal with major problems throughout last season and in the last couple of weeks had to make some decisions that included kicking one player off the squad.”

The Lady Trojans finished up with 13 players. They have 21 on this year’s roster and that includes 11 freshman, three – Alexis Trimiar, Emilee Dent and Summer Ghaffari – likely to earn substantial playing time.

“We played Walker Valley in the district tournament and played out of our minds,” said Lyness, a second-year coach with the Lady Trojans. “They beat us by (a combined) 76 points in two regular season games and we lost to them by four (57-53) in the tournament. We made major strides last year by winning two district games and not winning any for two years before that.”

Walker Valley coach J.R. Tucker: “I’ve got a great group of kids and half of them are still with the volleyball team.”

Tucker is returning to coaching after an extended time away and says he will have five seniors playing significant roles this season.

“I think things will go well,” the soft-spoken Tucker said. “I’m still learning about this team.”

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

 

Latest Headlines
Sports
Chattanooga Women Third At Spring Break Shootout
  • 3/18/2024

The Chattanooga Mocs got off to a solid start at the Spring Break Shootout. The ladies are 4 under on Lake Jovita Golf & Country Club’s South Course carding 280 over the opening 18 and 284 ... more

Sweetwater's Keke Norfolk Signs With Cleveland State
Sweetwater's Keke Norfolk Signs With Cleveland State
  • 3/18/2024

Keke Norfolk of Sweetwater High School signed a National Letter of Intent with the Cleveland State women’s basketball team this past week. Norfolk a 5’9” guard/forward, becomes the first signee ... more

Vol Baseball Win Streak Ends At 17 At Alabama
  • 3/18/2024

No. 5/5 Tennessee's 17-game winning streak came to an end with a 6-3 loss to No. 12/14 Alabama on Saturday night at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide (16-3, 1-1 SEC) ... more