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Stephens pleased with Winfield’s work over summer

Winfield’s boys basketball program was within one win of its second consecutive appearance in the Class AAA state tournament last season.

Unfortunately for the Generals, they found offense tough to come by in a Region IV co-final against Scott, and despite having homecourt advantage after garnering a sectional championship, Winfield was upended by the Skyhawks, 57-48.

The result meant a disappointing ending one game shy of where WHS had hoped to end its season, yet head coach Chris Stephens is hopeful returning players have moved on as the Generals look toward the future.

Part of that process included making the most of the three-week period over the summer, during which Winfield was a participant at Lincoln’s Cougar Shootout, the Morgantown Shootout and the Red & Black Athletic Club Shootout hosted by St. Albans at West Virginia State.

“We saw a full spectrum of it,” Stephens said. “We saw some flashes of being really good and I’ve seen us from top to bottom, but it’s good to get some of our younger guys out here to get them into our system. We have some football guys that missed some stuff, because they’re practicing in the morning. So we had a little bit of a mix of lineups and we had a couple players hurt, but it’s good to get everybody experience. For the most part, we played well consistently throughout the three weeks which is good.”

Five seniors and three starters are no longer around from last season, including 6-foot-5 post player Seth Shilot, an honorable mention all-state selection who was the team’s high scorer with 11 points in the season-ending setback. Six-foot-7 Elijah Crompton, who helped form a productive frontcourt duo with Shilot, was also a senior.

However, a pair of starters and five regulars in last season’s rotation are back, leaving Stephens hopeful that depth shouldn’t be an issue. Returning guard Ross Musick was an honorable mention all-state pick last season, while swingman Tanner Laughery was a key component as well.

“We’ll have numbers again,” he said. “We could have anywhere from eight to eleven guys in the mix for playing time.”

While the Generals matched their win total (14) last season from the previous campaign, they suffered 11 losses as opposed to seven the previous year. More importantly, WHS missed out on the state tournament less than a full year after not only getting to Charleston, but pulling off a quarterfinal round upset as a No. 7 seed with a win over No. 2 Fairmont Senior.

The Generals lost to eventual state champion Shady Spring in a semifinal, while the same Scott team that ousted Winfield this season pulled off an upset victory against Logan in this year’s No. 2 vs No. 7 matchup at states.

WHS would like nothing more than to end its season in the Capital City come March 2023. The process for that began not long after last season ended and continued into summer, with the Generals facing three different opponents in each of the three shootouts they appeared in.

At Lincoln, Stephens’ team battled Hampshire, Lewis County and the host Cougars. In Morgantown, WHS was matched up with University, Williamstown and Fairmont Senior, before the Generals took on Shady Spring, Parkersburg South and Logan at WVSU.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever matched up with University in the years that I’ve coached, even in any shootout,” Stephens said. “But it’s good that we saw a lot of tough teams and were tested. It gives us an idea of where we need to be and some things that we have to work on to get to where we want to get next season.”

With the outcome of summer games by and large inconsequential, Stephens was more focused on seeing specific aspects of his squad at the shootouts.

“We mixed lineups and basically got our secondary breaks going,” he said. “We didn’t really go over any sets, pressure or fullcourt stuff. Basically just trying to get the guys moving the ball and learning some of the core things that we like to do as a team and go from there. We concentrated mostly on the defensive end.”





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