By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Kyle Williams won back-to-back district titles in 2013 and 2014 and won 19 games both years.
But the former Carl Junction boys basketball coach relinquished his coaching duties to become an assistant principal and the Bulldogs haven’t had a winning season since.
Now Williams is back at the helm, replacing Skip Brock, who retired after five seasons.
“It’s kind of a unique situation that I’m an assistant principal at a larger school,” Williams said. “I still enjoy the game of basketball, still enjoy being around it. It’s an opportunity for me to still be around kids in a different capacity.”
“Whenever you’re in an admin role you lose some of the opportunities to be able to teach and teach something I love and the game of basketball provided that,” he said. “The opportunity to go back and do it is huge.”
Williams’ first challenge will be replacing Trent Smith, a 6-foot-6 forward who graduated after earning all-state and all-conference honors. Smith is Carl Junction’s all-time leading scorer and is playing college basketball at Southwest Baptist. He finished with 1,859 points in his high school career.
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“Where you’ll miss Trent the most is his size and his ability to score from multiple positions,” Williams said. “You’re going to lose kids that are 6-6 but it’s difficult to replace a kid that’s 6-6 and can also step out on the perimeter and hit a 15 or 18-foot jumper. His ability to just go and get a bucket whenever he needed or whenever he wanted, you’ll lose that. I think one of the things you may see differently now is the distribution of scoring will look a lot different than it was. Things were run through him primarily which makes sense.”
Even with Smith’s 21-points-per game average last season the Bulldogs stumbled to a 5-21 record after winning a district championship in 2018.
Carl Junction returns three starters in senior Teagan Armentrout and juniors Isaac Hoberecht and Alex Baker. The 6-foot-1 Armentrout and 5-11 Hoberecht are both guards, and the 6-3 Baker plays on the wing.
Baker is the team’s leading returning scorer; he averaged 8.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. Armentrout scored 6.1 points and dished out 3.7 assists and grabbed three rebounds; Hoberecht scored 6.3 points.
“You bring back three guys that all do something a little bit different,” Williams said. “All are athletic and all have a pretty high basketball IQ. They all bring a different skill set. Alex will actually probably play away from the basket more than he’s done in the past and be more of a wing or perimeter player. Hoberecht and Armentrout are interchangeable, both can handle the basketball and handle pressure well. Hoberecht’s a really good shooter and Armentrout just plays bigger than what he is. He’s a great rebounding guard, slasher, he pushes the tempo. All three are pretty savvy and can defend.”
Who will fill out the rest of the starting lineup remains to be seen. There is a sizable group competing for varsity minutes, including some newcomers.
Jackson Huffman, a 6-1 senior guard, missed last season due to injury but is back this winter. Senior Garrett Taylor, a 6-1 guard and 6-5 senior Camryn Simon are on the roster after not playing last year.
Others looking to contribute include 5-9 senior Slade Frazier, 6-7 junior Blake Poorman, 6-1 junior Trentyn Lehman, 5-9 junior Sincere Williams, 6-0 junior Brady Sims, 6-0 sophomore Isaiah Hefner and 6-2 sophomore Josh Cory.
Williams said the roster includes a “few basketball players and a lot of athletes.”
“What I do know is we’re probably more athletic than what we were last year just watching games and teams,” he said. “We’re definitely quicker. It also provides us opportunities to be really competitive in practice which is only going to help things.”
Overall numbers have increased, with 44 players signing up initially. Williams has made it a priority to make sure that everyone who should be on the team is coming out this year. There’s something of a buzz in the air right now around the program.
“Kids are excited, our community is excited,” he said. “That’s always going to happen with change. People are excited so it’s important for us to capitalize on that. So far we’ve done a good job of getting kids back out, kids who can help us.”
