Fresh blood for Heat

Jamie Doran

Valley Press

Hot Springs Savage Heat boys basketball coach Kevin Meredith is excited to start the new season and has high hopes for his players, even if the team is a little on the small side this year.

Meredith is entering his second year as head coach and he hopes the team can repeat and add on to the success they found in his first year.

"We had a pretty good year last year," he said. "We ended up winning the conference tournament and making it to divisionals."

The team started practice Nov. 24 and there are 14 guys who are going out for the junior varsity and varsity teams.

Meredith said there are a few returning players that he is going to look towards for some big plays and leadership this year including junior Riley Winebrenner and senior Carter Farrier.

He said the team is really working on a lot of conditioning and drills right now. "It's hard to prepare for the first game of the year," he said. "We're trying to figure out what to do in every situation."

The Savage Heat take on the St. Regis Tigers in their first game of the season Dec. 9 and Meredith said it is good to get some of those conference games out of the way early.

"It's good practice for them and it makes it easier for them to get the skills down," he said.

Meredith said the big thing they'll be working on this year is depth. "That's the big difference that we're going to be looking at," he said.

He said they're going to have to see how practice goes to determine how many players are on each team, but with the low numbers there will be some shifting.

"Most likely quite a few of the junior varsity players will be both on the JV team and on the varsity team," he said. "There will definitely be some shifting so we can have more depth."

The Lady Savage Heat basketball team has a new head coach and he is excited to get the season underway.

Scott Wigton is in his first year as head coach, but it is his fifth season with the program.

"I'm very, very excited to take on the head coaching position," Wigton said. "We've got a pretty good group of girls coming back this year and they're going to be a really fun group to coach."

Wigton said the girls are very skilled as far as their basketball abilities are concerned and that as a coach, "you dream of a group like this."

Last year the Lady Savage Heat ended up getting second at districts, second at divisionals and then ended up going to the state tournament.

"We had a really good season last year, but I think the girls are really hoping to do even better this year," he said.

Wigton said the team only lost two seniors off of last year's squad and that the core of the group is returning including Matea DePoe, Jordon Fisher and MacKenzie Wood, who are all fresh off of the volleyball season and all of which were all conference basketball players last year.

Practice started Nov. 24 for the team and Wigton said it has been going really well and that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the girls are comfortable with him.

"The group that I have now, have known me for the last five years," he said. "They know what they're going to get in practice and we've already had some really, really good practices."

Wigton said they came in really motivated the very first day and it has continued.

"The girls have had some really great seasons, both in volleyball for those players and in basketball all of which ended a little prematurely in their eyes," he said. "So they're all ready to play."