The Pocahontas County High School Warriors basketball team opened their season at Tucker County on Tuesday night. That game and two other games, including the home opener on Friday night against Meadow Bridge, will be reported in next week’s edition. Early season scouting reports indicate the Warriors will be a force to be reckoned with in Class A basketball.
Head Coach Tim McClung was pleased with the team’s performance in scrimmages in the first week of December.
“The scrimmages went real well,” said McClung. “We scrimmaged at Webster last Tuesday and we won four out of the five quarters and tied the other one. So, that scrimmage went well. We did some things good and we found some things that we needed to work on, which we did that week.
“This past Saturday, we were up at Liberty-Harrison and we won all four quarters on the varsity level. The first two quarters, we scored 50 points and did a lot of things well. In the second two quarters, we scored 37 points, so the total was 87 to 40-something for the four quarters. We did some things really well there. Our transition game went real well. On defense, we played a lot of man-to-man, full court, in the first half and we got a lot of transition baskets. That’s how we want to score a lot of points this year.”
Now in his third season as Warriors’ head coach, McClung started off in 2012 with a very young team.
“We have three seniors back this year,” he said. “This is the first year that I’ve had any returning seniors. They are Cary Robertson, Adam Irvine and Stephen Mick. They’re doing a good job. We’ve got two juniors to round out the starting five – J.D. Hensler and Dalton Irvine. Both of them are playing real well and hopefully going to get better each game.
“Then, we’re coming off the bench with a couple juniors and a sophomore. We have Chad Friel, Braxton Rider and Brady Jones that we’re using in that rotation. Right now, we’re running an eight-man rotation. Danny Kimble is getting some time also. He’s a sophomore and Brady’s a sophomore. Brady and Danny are two bigger kids, so they bring a lot of strength when they come in.
“Rider’s an excellent shooter and Friel’s got a lot of speed. Dalton Irvine is a young man who can jump out of the gym. He and Stevie Mick are doing a great job. Cary is our point guard, running the team. He’s shown a lot of leadership. Adam Irvine is just a constant. You know what you’ll get from Adam every night and it’s good play.”
The Warriors have raised expectations with their pre-season play. The bar will be set even higher with a victory at Tucker County. The home opener against Meadow Bridge is Friday night, starting at 5:45 p.m. with the JV game. McClung said fans should expect an exciting game.
“They’re going to see a basketball team that’s going to get up and down the floor and press a lot,” he said. “If you enjoy fast basketball, transition basketball, then I think you’ll want to be at the game Friday night.”
