The Lightridge Boys Basketball team heads hopefully into their fourth season after closing out the previous season with a 6-17 record.
Head Boys Varsity Basketball Coach, Brain Washington, has over twenty years of coaching experience after beginning his career at Freedom High School in 2005. Additionally he’s been a part of the coaching staff at Briarwoods, Dominion, Rockridge, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and Crawson High School.
David Ware, Assistant Boys Varsity Basketball Coach, has ten years of experience and before he began coaching at Lightridge he coached at John Champe and recreation and travel leagues. Last year he was the freshman head coach at Lightridge.
At tryouts for the 2023-2024 season, Washington and Ware were focused on seeking players who could rebound, shoot, prevent turnovers, and handle the basketball effectively. They also wanted to see a greater offensive drive and stronger defensive efforts in order to protect the court.
“If you go back to when we opened the school, we were losing by, on average, between 30-35 points per game. We were never in any game except for when we beat Parkview. The year after that we lost on average about fifteen points per game,” said Washington.
Last season they improved, oftentimes only trailing their opponents by 5 points in the 4th quarter.
“It was tough,” said Washington. “ Yet I was very optimistic because of the results we were actually getting and how we competed.”
Washington said it’s important to remember basketball is a skilled game so there’s no specific player that is solely responsible for scoring; rather, each player has the opportunity to earn points in the paint. The coaches are ecstatic for the improvement they hope to find this season as the program is still developing. However, they are still trying to figure out their leadership among the team.
“It’s easy to coach a team and tell the kids what to do but if you have someone who’s actually leading that charge, it makes a big difference,” said Washington. “A lot of the time, when you’re a coach you feel like a parent when you’re disciplining the athletes on the team, but if you have someone telling the team to come along with them makes it a lot easier.”
The players and coaches look forward to improving this season with six returning members and newly selected athletes as they take on their biggest competitors in the 5A classification.
At the time of publication, the team’s record stands at 3-7.
