Westside suffered a 63-39 loss to Wyoming East in mid February last season. The gap closed in a hurry as the Renegades led for most of the game when the teams met in the sectional opener three weeks later, a game East narrowly won 52-46.
But more than anything it illustrated a change for the Renegades who steadily improved towards the end of the season under first-year head coach Tom Evans.
For the follow up they’re hoping to do more of the same and stack up wins.
“The last few games we played were a lot better,” Evans said. “Last year we had an excellent showing at Tug Valley at the end of the year. We played three quarters of the best basketball we played all year and just kind of ran out of gas at the end and got beat. But we were winning that game at Tug which is a difficult place to play for more than three quarters. We were playing really well. And then that carried over to Wyoming East game, which we had a good game plan and led the whole game and then just once again, I think we just ran out of gas at the end of the sectional. But there was a lot of momentum and it carried through the summer. The guys were itching to play. We traveled a lot and were in the gym a whole lot. Everyone’s so upbeat right now and it’s refreshing.”
This year the Renegades will be led by key returners who have played a lot of basketball. Bryson Blankenship and Kadien Vance are amongst them and even the ones that didn’t see a lot of varsity action figure to factor into the mix having familiarity with Evans and his system.
“Bryson Blankenship is our big guy,” Evans said. “He’s returning as a junior. He’s been a varsity player all three years. He played as a freshman and as sophomore last year with me. He’s gonna start this year as a junior. Kadien started probably more than half the games last year. We might have made a little lineup change just to change things up about midseason. But he started more than half the games last year and he’s back out there. We’ve got some new starters. My point guard is a sophomore that I’m going to start out with Braxton Waldron. Austin Bishop who is a junior shooting guard is going to be starting his new and then also Brayden French, who is a senior is going to be starting at the three and he’s also a new starter. So we got three new starters, two returning starters, but I’m very happy with the group.”
Westside’s last state tournament appearance came in 2018 and Evans is hoping to snap that skid this season, though it will be a challenge. The Renegades played up in Class AAA for two years before dropping back into a loaded Class AA in Region 3. Getting to states means going through the 2022 state runner-up Bluefield and defending state champion Chapmanville.
That doesn’t deter the proud and young Renegades.
“The goal is always to win games and make it to the state tournament,” Evans said. “That’s where you want to be and have a chance to play for a state championship and that’s where the guys are. They’re just disappointed in how last year went. I’ve got the majority of my guys back so they’re dying to make a push. They want to be in that conversation with Bluefield, Chapmanville and Wyoming East. Those teams that are in the preseason rankings that are getting talked about, they want to be recognized individually so that’s always the goal is to make a push. We realize we’re in a difficult situation with the section and the region. But we have to beat one of them. We got to get through one side of the bracket to advance so it’s not an impossible feat. They’ve got to prove to themselves, that they can compete with those guys. And we played some really, really good teams through summer, and we were highly competitive. So it’s encouraging on our end.”
