It’s a new era at Westside.
After dominating the middle school ranks at Oceana, Tom Evans is now the head man of the boys basketball team in Clear Fork.
He brings in years of experience, having won a state championship with Oceana High in the ’90s under Jim Hopkins. Now he’s tasked with getting a Westside program that’s missed the state tournament every year since 2018 back to Charleston.
“Our expectation, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t go to the state tournament and make some noise,” Evans said. “That’s the goal every year. With a young team it’s going to be based on whether they progress. If they get shell-shocked and start slow and it’s just a grind of a year and it may be a long, long season. If they come out quick, get some confidence and let that build – these kids are talented. I’m not blowing smoke. These guys can play and they’ve won at every level they’ve been together. My middle school team last year went and beat Oak hill twice and we played PikeView and won those games. We played those bigger schools and the kids are starting to come back together now on this team.”
Evans’ first task will be making a bunch of younger pieces fit together.
Graduation took its toll on the Renegades with players such as Shandell Adkins and Evan Colucci moving on.
“As far as people that are available and healthy from last year, we have three,” Evans said. “We have Dale (Bledsoe), Hunter Lester who’s a senior and Bryson Blankenship who is a sophomore and started some games as a freshman. Off that list is Ashton Reed who is dealing with a knee injury and will probably be out until January.”
Though young, Evans is more than keen on letting his young group hit the floor and find themselves. He’s done as much in scrimmages and has liked the results.
“We played Webster County at Shady in a scrimmage and I started four sophomores and a junior,” Evans said. “That was fun. Kyler Kenneda is a 10th grader and he’ll run the point. We also have a kid from Mingo Central and his twin brother Austin Bishop and Braden Bishop. Kaiden Vance is a 10th grader who will start and we mentioned Bryson Blankenship. Coltin Lester is also a 10th grader who will probably be the first one off the bench. But all of them collectively are going to have to do a lot. They can all handle and shoot and they’re going to have to produce because I’m mixing them in with Dale and Hunter is a three. I don’t have a lot of big kids but I have 6-foot and above athletic kids.”
While youth has its disadvantages, it also has advantages. Evans plans to lean into those.
“Ignorance,” Evans said when asked of his team’s strengths. “They don’t know you’re playing Bluefield who should wear you out. All they know is ‘I usually score 20 points and I’m going to score 20 points.’ They just know I’m going to go play basketball and they get excited about it. Like I said, we threw four kids and another that barely played last year to start that game Saturday and it took them about four minutes to get moving but after that it was all positive stuff. Just the youthfulness is one of our better assets.”
For Evans the transition has been pretty easy. He’s coached many of these same players at the middle school, finding success as he led them to three consecutive county titles. Now he’s building on the concepts he previously taught them.
“For me it’s been pretty easy because it’s just basketball and I just pick up where I left off,” Evans said. “It’s a little more complex, the things I’m teaching and the things I’m doing at this level versus what I was doing in middle school. I would dumb it down for sixth graders but now I get to kind of go with the full repertoire of what I know and what I’m doing. Some of the guys are wondering where this or that came from and I don’t think they could comprehend it three years ago but here we are and you’ve got to pick up. The boys have been super positive and we had a lot of kids come out for tryouts. It was just good and positive. Everybody’s excited because it’s new and fresh and positive.”
