JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — A boys travel basketball team from Avery County made a splash during a weekend tournament at Science Hill High School, winning an event featuring teams from multiple states in the region, including neighboring Cloudland High School.
The event was a round-robin tournament where the Avery club played three games. The top two teams in group play then competed in a championship game, where Avery advanced and defeated the Virginia Vamps travel team to bring home the gold medal.
“Overall, one great thing about this group is they have such great chemistry together. Whether they play a large number of minutes or fewer minutes, they pull for each other,” Coach Joe Ingham said of the team after the tournament. ‘They’re cheering for each other. And all these guys, we took 12 guys with us, every one of them, their main focus is winning, and they pull for each other. They love each other. Their chemistry is great on the court.”
The tournament is one of several events that the team, comprised of many stars from the Avery High School varsity boys basketball team, will be competing in over the course of the spring and summer months. Avery High School is scheduled to host a travel tournament on Saturday, April 23.
“We’ll play about all summer, and we try and play every other weekend or so. I know they are trying to have the Viking Classic on April 23rd here at Avery, and we’ll participate in that,” Ingham added. “We try to go to about two tournaments a month. We’ve got several players that are involved in other sports at the high school, but we try to have practice once a week, and usually everybody shows up there and for the weekends. They’re all eager to be there and play, and we get great support from the parents and grandparents. They’re there to do whatever they can to help support the team and they get their kids wherever they need to be.”
Ingham was quick to express appreciation to the ACHS basketball coaching staff for the support that they offer to the travel team as the additional play is mutually beneficial toward the ultimate improvement of both the travel and high school programs.
“The coaches at the high school have been great. They do everything that they can to support the boys,” Ingham explained. “You can just tell that the coaches really have invested a lot in these kids, and they love them and they’re gonna do anything they can to push them forward and see them improve, not only as players but also just as young men.”
In summary, Ingham was pleased with the team’s effort and performance over the weekend tournament, and expects continued improvement and success in outings to come.
“I thought we played really well. We had a bunch of close tough games. When it came down to the end, the team played well and did what they’re supposed to do. When we’re patient on offense, we usually get good open shots that lead to easy baskets. We were aggressive on defense, and our transition offense has been good,” Ingham added. “There really wasn’t one standout. Everybody pitches in and everybody does their part. We’ve got some guys that their main thing is to facilitate, and they don’t score a lot. Our guards did some hit some big shots this week, and our post guys played well, just overall really well, Out of four games we lost only once, and out of four games we really just played one bad second half. Everything else, we played pretty well. We had a little lapse but ended up coming back and beating that team in the championship, so it worked out well.”
