W-S Prep called county’s No. 1 JV basketball team
(Above: Photos by Charles E. Leftwich Davier Dixon (left) and Caleb Burgess of Winston-Salem Prep in action.)
This is the first of two season-ending articles on junior varsity basketball in Forsyth County. Here’s the season wrap-up for schools in Classes 1-A, 2-A and 3-A.
Winston-Salem Prep’s junior varsity ran the table in dominant fashion. The end result was an undefeated season (20-0, 14-0 Northwest Conference) and acknowledgement as the county’s No. 1 JV basketball team.
The Phoenix is stocked with an abundance of quick athletes with rangy builds who play multiple positions. Pressure defense is a staple and no JV team does it better than Prep, who has won three of the last four Lash-Chronicle Holiday Classic championships.
At the end of the season four members of the JV team got the call to move up. Caleb Burgess, Davier Dixon, Justin Carter and Keith Watson joined the varsity team in its quest to win a fourth straight Class 1-A state championship.
“Everyone played together and nobody cared who got the credit,” said Coach Bill Tibbs. “The hardest part was keeping everybody focused and grounded.”
Prep was equally impressive on offense. Six players – Brandon Palmer, Anthony Williams, Burgess, Watson, Carter and Dixon averaged between 9 and 14 points per game.
“With the people we had this season, we were confident that we’d get 65 points every game,” said Tibbs. “It didn’t matter if one player had a bad shooting night. There were others who would always pick up the scoring.”
Atkins
Coach David Prim believes that Atkins (6-15) has started to turn the corner. That’s because the Camels nearly broke even in Northwest Conference play (6-7) and they tripled their win total from the previous season.
“They bought in to what we had been teaching,” said Prim, whose team won five of its last eight games. “Towards the end, they turned things around and made it a meaningful season. We can’t go anywhere but up.”
During their season-ending run, the Camels got strong performances from Syrus Sadler, Justin Noland, Montel Twyman and D.J. Williams.
2-A Carver
With a roster comprised mostly of 9th-grade players, Carver took its lumps. The Yellowjackets finished 3-17 overall and 2-8 in the Western Piedmont Conference.
Quinn Baker, Quan Jackson and Russell Bradley were Carver’s top performers.
“We had a lot of players who went through a tough adjustment in their first season of playing at the high school level,” said Coach Jamie Foster. “To their credit, they played hard and never gave up. With every game and with every practice, they took a step forward and continued to show improvement.”
3-A North Forsyth
North Forsyth proved to be one of the JV elites this season. The Vikings (15-6) ended up sharing the Mid-Piedmont Conference regular season title with Asheboro. During the season, both teams split in their two games and posted identical 11-1 records in conference play
“Our season was efficient and productive,” said Coach Jefferey Moore. “The players learned how to execute in game situations and that made a huge difference. They did a good job of changing over from having a ‘me’ mentality to having a team mentality.”
Over the course of the season, three JV players were promoted to varsity. Deante Petree moved up after the first two weeks of the season. David Payne joined Petree in early February and Cameron King was called up at the end of the JV season.
Caleb Pettigrew, an agile 6-foot-2-inches, 290 pounds post player, developed as a formidable factor in the paint. His emergence didn’t happen right away. It took Pettigrew, a JV football fullback, several weeks to get fully acclimated to basketball.
“Once Caleb got in basketball shape, his confidence grew and he became a big playmaker,” said Moore. “Coming down the stretch, he played his best ball of the season.”
Next week: JV season wrap-up for Class 4-A schools.
