Summers County broke in a young group last season, eventually falling to Bluefield in the sectional opener. But the season wasn’t considered a lost cause because it provided experience.
Now head coach Robert Bowling is hoping that experience pays off.
Leading the charge for his squad this year will be a veteran backcourt with two of the most talented athletes in the school in Brandan Isaac and Ryan Oliveros. Bowling hopes they can help light up the scoreboard the same way they did in football this past season.
“Our strength is our guard play with Ryan and Brandan,” Bowling said. “Brandan has started for four years now and this will be Ryan’s second year starting a bunch of ball games for us. We also got a senior coming back in Ayden Plumley who probably should have played more last year but we had good depth but he can score the basketball. I think he’ll probably be our third option on offense. Robey Brown is a sophomore and he played pretty much all JV last year because again, we had great depth, but he’s grown and he’s worked really hard. Been in the gym played a lot of basketball over the course of the last year.
“Ben Lane is a senior that ended up getting hurt midseason last year and missing out but he was playing minutes early on. He’s really quick, a good defender and runs the floor well. He’s a good baseball player so he has great hand-eye coordination. Benji Dunford has is probably our biggest player, maybe our second biggest player. He’s probably 6-foot-3, or in that vicinity and has worked really hard on his body over the course of the last year to get himself into a situation where he can get up and down the floor a little better than he could in the past. Probably the last person in our rotation this minute would be Ayden Gardner.”
Bowling anticipates that experience as well as battles with some of the area’s best teams have strengthened his roster and he hopes it helps them take a step forward this season.
“It’s our guard play that’s going to help us a lot” Bowling said. “And you know, they’re all-state kids in football and they’re probably going to be to all-state kids in baseball as well. They’ve played in some big games and played a lot of basketball over the course of their lives. They probably, I would say (Isaac and Oliveros) have played as much basketball, maybe more, than any of the kids that I’ve had in the course of 11 years of me being the head coach, and then maybe even the 10 years or so before as the assistant.”
The challenge as always will be navigating through a region that fields perennial Top 10 teams such Bluefield, Wyoming East and Chapmanville. Chapmanville is the reigning state champion and Bluefield finished as the state runner-up in 2022. Summers has to beat one or both in order to get to Charleston. Summers is aiming to first secure a winning season to put itself in the best position come postseason time.
“the back court is gonna shoulder more this year but we still got some guys that we need to bring along,” Bowling said. “You know, I think this group has enough ability to have a winning season. And I like think we can hold our own against those other guys. It’s super hard for a very rural, small single-A in every other sport team to compete with Chapmanville Regional High School and Bluefield but we can’t make excuses. And it’s a one to one game. It’s a one play. It’s one quarter. You deal with it as you get it. Keep fighting. But like I said, I think I think we can have a solid year. I definitely think winning more than losing is a definite goal of ours. And at the end of the year you want to be playing your best and you give yourself a chance when you have good guards. It gives you a good opportunity because you know you’re not as easily pressed. You know when you get the ball up the floor and can get a shot. And hopefully those two guys along with with with the Robey Brown can hold up to the pressure that we’ll see later in the year.”
