The Summers County boys basketball team has persevered through a few rough seasons.
This year with many starers back in tow they’re hoping to change their fortunes and build on a nine-win campaign.
“Last year we only graduated one and the year before it was the Covid year and I had four kids practice the day before we played Bluefield in the sectional,” Summers head coach Robert Bowling said. “That was a really tough year. Last year we ended up winning nine games but did graduate Bryson Keaton. We have seven seniors on this year’s team, six we have back. We actually had a kid move back home from Greater Beckley in Michael Judy.”
With that many players back and the arrival of Judy, a key role player on Greater Beckley’s Class A runner-up team last season, it’s created depth and sparked healthy battles for playing time. That along with a healthy Brandon Isaac has Bowling optimistic.
“I intend to play a lot of people every night because it creates competition,’ Bowling said. “Brandon Isaac is an extremely high character kid and I don’t know that I’ve dealt with a better boy than Brandon Isaac. He’s really smart and unfortunately he’s had an injury bug the past couple of years and so far this year he’s been healthy for us. He’s a high IQ kid that’s basketball savvy. He has kind of an old man game with lots of pump fakes and off-speed stuff. He’s probably played as much basketball as any kid I’ve had, truthfully.”
The arrival of Judy, a big floor stretcher, has helped as well. He brings a skillset Bowling hasn’t often had.
“We are always small,” Bowling said. “There aren’t a lot of big kids in our school so to get a bigger body is a positive. Michael has some basketball savvy about him and I think people think about him as kind of a shooter and he has the ability to stretch the floor but he’s also a good passer. He ends up getting people easy baskets with his vision. And where he’s left-handed he’s a little unorthodox and gives people trouble.
“But we’ve also got Cruz Testerman back and he was our leading scorer last year and he’s a senior. He’s a good athlete and I think with some of the other guards we have we can play him more at the three instead of the two and will be put in more of a scoring situation and won’t have to do as much handling.”
When parsing through the positives and negatives, one positive stands out that makes this team unique for Bowling.
“I think the strength of this team is its depth,” Bowling said. “It’s probably the deepest I’ve had since I’ve been here. We’ve had some groups where we’ve been eight or nine deep but with this group I feel pretty comfortable playing 10. It makes it hard to determine who should be out there but that’s a good problem to have. I also think they have good chemistry. Adding Judy and we got Ryan Oliveros back on the court. We have really good chemistry and trying to add these new faces, it’s a work in progress but they get along with each other and like each other.”
Bowling has goals in mind for his team, ones he wants to accomplish prior to looking ahead to the postseason.
“Who we’re in a section with is put of our control so there’s no point stressing about that,” Bowling said. “I expect this team to have a winning record. Does that mean 13-9 or 15 wins? I don’t know. But I expect this team to have a winning record. I hope we can show continual progress and there’s no easy path to Charleston. Hopefully by the end of the year we’re playing our best basketball and we’ll see what happens, but I expect a winning record and with our character and work ethic we’ll continue to improve.”
