By Thomas Grant Jr.
Change is definitely a theme in the post-Tim Whipple era for Irmo boys basketball. Along with first-year head coach Alex Guillen, the Yellow Jackets are sporting black and white jerseys and shorts without the trademark gold colors.
Photo by Thomas Grant Jr.
“We kind of changed up the jerseys a little bit,” Quillen said. “Coach Whipple will tell you they’re ugly because he loves his old jerseys and everything and I enjoy them too. But I kind of just wanted to get something new for these guys to kind of get excited about and everything and that’s kind of what they wanted.”
The newness also extends to the roster. With the exception of seniors Cameron Brown, Darius Dollison and Matthew Hopkins, the roster is dominated by eight sophomores and three freshmen getting their first taste of varsity action.
Irmo has split their first four games, all of them on the road. While the results have been mixed, they follow a pattern associated with teams going through growing pains.
An example was Thursday’s 65-59 loss to Spring Valley. The Yellow Jackets kept fighting back from a first-half deficit all the way through the final minute.
Brown led Irmo with 16 points, followed by sophomore and preseason All-Region Jeremy Anderson with 11 and Hopkins with 10.
“I’d like to have a couple more wins, but our guys are working hard,” Quillen said. “We’ve kind of gotten in position where we’re down in games and we’ve had to fight back and, in every game, we’ve fought back. So step one to that is they’re not giving up. They’re playing hard. They’re getting after it until the end of the game. Hopefully now, instead of playing catch up, we can start keeping that lead and gaining that lead and keeping it going.”
Anderson and Hopkins are players Quillen want to see take that “next step” in leadership. The Yellow Jackets also have height in the frontcourt with 6-foot 5 Anderson, 6-foot 6 junior Jaden Rivers and Oshon Browman.
While Irmo is moving up to Class 5A, its Region 4 competitors are no strangers to the program.
“The region we’re in now has always been our non-region schedule,” Quillen said. “We’ve always played River Bluff. We’ve always played Chapin. We’ve always played Lexington. We’ve always played Dutch Fork. White Knoll, we haven’t played in a while. But they’re teams we’re kind of used to. It was hard to get a non-conference schedule now because that was our non-conference schedule.’
The Irmo boys rebounded with a 64-41 win over Aiken on Monday. Brown had 12 points, Hopkins added 11 and Anderson and Kaleb Copeland each had nine.
Lady Yellow Jackets
The Irmo girls are also 3-2 on the season.
The week started with a 70-36 loss at Spring Valley. Point guard Abby Livingston led the way again with 14 points and La’Nee Singletary added 11 points.
Dutch Fork teams
The preseason-ranked Lady Silver Foxes are off to an undefeated start.
They have won their first five games by an average of 43.6 points. Three players are averaging in double figures led by California-San Diego signee Michaela Fairwell (20.3 points, 4.5 steals per game).
Junior guard Aaliyah Lee is currently averaging a double-double (12 points, 10.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists per game) followed by sophomore center Trinity Crumlin (10.5 points, 2.3 blocks per game).
The boys’ team was sporting a 4-2 record entering Tuesday’s home matchup with Spring Valley. In their last outing, it rallied from a 15-point first-quarter deficit to defeat Brookland-Cayce 58-51.
Bryson Taylor led Dutch Fork with 24 points, Caleb Garner had 14 and Justus Bell finished with 13. Gage Stewart also sparked the comeback with his defensive effort.
HOOPS SCHEDULE
(Friday’s Games)
Spring Valley at Irmo 6 p.m.
Dutch Fork at A.C. Flora 6 p.m.
(Tuesday’s Games)
Columbia at Irmo 6 p.m.
Dutch Fork at Spring Valley 6 p.m.
Feature photo by Thomas Grant Jr. – Irmo’s Jeremy Anderson shoots between two Spring Valley players.
