West Forsyth boys and girls basketball each pick up wins this week

Published 11:08 pm Saturday, December 9, 2023

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By Jay Spivey 

It was a quiet week for both the boys and girls basketball teams at West Forsyth, but that doesn’t mean that each team wasn’t busy.

Both teams just had one game on their schedule this past week – Tuesday night at Western Guilford in a nonconference game. The boys defeated Western Guilford 80-58 to improve to 3-0. The girls defeated Western Guilford 61-48. That’s after both the boys and girls teams were off for three days following wins at Atkins last Friday.

“We practiced as normal on a Monday,” Coach Marlon Brim of the West Forsyth boys said. “Tried to get up and down again to get back in a little shape from the weekend. Work(ed) on some ball handling and some shooting, and then try to go over the scouting report.”

“It’s been good for us,” Brim said. “It’s been really good that we’ve been able to get some good practice in, work on a lot of things, and just try to get healthy.”

Brim said that he has a couple kids who are “banged up,” and one who has been sick.

“We’ll just try to work through that and it’s a good time for us to work through it,” Brim said.

Jordan Jones led West Forsyth with 19 points, Jordan Tate and Jacari Brim scored 12 points apiece, Anthony Jordan had 11, and Max Skillman scored 10.

“I don’t think we played well,” Marlon Brim said. “I thought we played well at Atkins when we shared the ball, shot the ball. And I think at Western we didn’t play the same and we wasn’t consistent defensively for my liking.”

But a win is a win and the boys are undefeated.

“We were good in spots, like 2-3 minutes here, 2-3 minutes second quarter, 2-3 minutes third quarter,” Marlon Brim said. “So, it wasn’t a consistent 8-minute quarter that we had a real good quarter. We was kind up and down in quarters.

After the boys win against Western Guilford it was back to the basics.

“We did a lot of skill work, some lifting, some individual stretching,” Marlon Brim said. “We just do the whole thing we usually do. We had a regular practice (Friday) and (Thursday). Wednesday was kind of a light day. We just did a bunch of skill work.

“But Thursday and Friday was a good day of really what a good practice was.”

Brim used Thursday and Friday as a day to have intrasquad scrimmages.

“We go over stuff we want to get better at, and we want to go over what we think other teams may run,” Marlon Brim said. “We run our stuff against their zone or their man defense. So how we prepare during this time is, even though we’re scrimmaging we’re working on different things.

“We scrimmage for 10 minutes, talk about it, talk about what the other team may run, go over that for 10 or 12 minutes.”

The announcement of the brackets for the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic boys tournament will take place on Monday morning, and the tournament runs Dec. 20-22 at both Mount Tabor and East Forsyth.

“We’ll do the same. That’s how we treat all our practices,” Marlon Brim said. “Even if we have three, four, five days off, we kind of treat our practices the same.”

Also, the boys are off until Friday when it is scheduled to open Central Piedmont 4-A play at home against Parkland. That game is also scheduled to be West Forsyth’s first home game.

“Parkland plays hard,” Marlon Brim said. “They’ve got some good size. They’ve got some athletic kids. They play hard. They’re Parkland kids.”

Counting the Parkland game on Friday, after only playing three games so far, the West Forsyth boys are scheduled to play seven games in 14 days. After the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic, the boys will take a short Christmas break, then they will travel to Gatlinburg, Tenn., to play in a tournament there Dec. 27-29.

“I think they’ll be ready,” Marlon Brim said. “A lot of it is their mental preparedness. We’re prepared basketball-wise. All they’ve got to do is just mentally lock in. You know, seven games in (14) days is not bad considering you’re only playing one game a day. So, to me, that give you plenty of time to refocus and get ready.”

As for the girls at West Forsyth, coached by Catrina Green, they improved to 3-2 after the win at Western Guilford.

West Forsyth outscored Western Guilford 16-11 after the first quarter and 32-23 at halftime.

The West Forsyth girls are also scheduled to have Monday-Thursday off this week before their home conference game against Parkland. West Forsyth has already played Parkland once. West Forsyth defeated Parkland 50-48 in the seventh-place game of the Mary Garber Holiday Tipoff Classic on Nov. 22.