‘Ready to win’: Douglass boys’ and girls’ basketball teams are shaping into contenders
One has an 11-game win streak. The other has tackled one of the most difficult schedules of any team in the state but dominated within district play and just knocked off one of the 11th Region’s other favorites.
Yes, both Frederick Douglass’s boys’ and girls’ basketball teams have the look of contenders despite the challenges each has faced this season.
“I’m very confident,” Douglass senior guard Kai Simpson said of his 14-2 Broncos, ranked No. 23 in the latest boys’ ratings by Dave Cantrall. “We’ve got three straight district championships and we’re trying to get four. To make it happen, our chemistry’s got to keep going and just get together as a team and we’ll move on.”
“We’re just getting better,” Douglass junior forward Ayanna Darrington said of her 10-6 Broncos, who moved up to No. 12 in the latest girls’ ratings by Cantrall. “As we get better playing these harder teams, we’re going to get better during the playoffs and we’re going to come in ready to play in the tournament. We’re going to come in ready to win.”
Making adjustments with new coach
With nearly half his team still playing football, interim coach Wes Scarberry’s Broncos opened the season against No. 3 Lexington Catholic with a 71-59 loss.
Douglass won the Class 5A state football championship on Dec. 3.
A week later, Douglass suffered its second basketball loss, this time 78-60 to No. 2 Great Crossing.
They’ve been on a roll since, winning by an average of nearly 23 points per game as the football players worked back into basketball form and the team learned Scarberry’s offensive and defensive schemes. Scarberry was named the Broncos’ interim coach in September after the abrupt dismissal of Jason Moseley at the start of the school year.
“At first, we didn’t really know what was going on, but then we got it together,” Simpson said of the new system. He’s grown to love it. “There’s a lot of sets that I’m not used to, but it works. I like the sets, and if we don’t have the sets going, we can just spread it out and let us work and use our athleticism.”
That athleticism was on full display last week in a 66-57 win at Bryan Station. Despite not having a player taller than 6-foot-3, Douglass had nine blocks, five of them by 6-3 sophomore guard Aveion Chenault, who scored six of his 15 points on thundering dunks. Armelo Boone, another 6-3 sophomore, added a couple more slams.
Four Broncos average double figures in scoring, led by Simpson at 18.5 points per game. The others are Boone at 15.7, Chenault at 12.6 and Tylon Webb at 12.3.
“Our team is really just now kind of getting to where we want them to be,” Scarberry said. “We’re just now getting to what I would call ‘beginning of the season form.’”
Girls’ team battle-tested
Coach DJ Moberly pulled no punches when lining up this season’s girls’ schedule. Four of the Broncos’ six defeats have come to top-25 teams — No. 1 Sacred Heart, No. 5 Mercy, as well as Ryle and Central, who share Cantrall’s No. 10 spot.
“This is what we want to do,” he said. “We want to get prepared going into February. I feel like we started off good in the month of January. We lost one the other night and it was pretty tough on us, but we competed and that’s the thing. As long as we compete and get better game after game, the results will pan out.”
His team has responded. The Broncos are 5-0 in 42nd District play and have beaten those rivals by an average of more than 34 points per game.
On Saturday, Douglass defeated 44th District favorite and fellow 11th Region contender Madison Central, 67-58, with sophomore guard Niah Rhodes knocking down six three-pointers on the way to a game-high 32 points.
Rhodes leads the team in scoring at 20.9 points per game, followed by senior transfer Myra Christian’s 15.3. Darrington and sophomore guard Kate Baker each score more than 9.5 points per game.
Against Bryan Station last week, Darrington had a breakout effort, scoring 13 of her 21 points in the first quarter as the Broncos took command.
“We’ve learned to maneuver and work together as a team,” Darrington said. “We’re sharing the ball more and we’re learning each other more as players.”
More challenges ahead
Their roads to the postseason don’t get easier, of course.
The girls host No. 6 George Rogers Clark on Wednesday and go to district-rival Henry Clay on Friday.
The boys host Henry Clay on Tuesday and then 11th Region contender Madison Central on Friday.
Though Chenault spoke only of his perspective on the boys’ season, his words apply to both.
“I’m very confident. I feel like we can improve,” he said. “We’re just trying to keep our goals as a team and make it far.”
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This story was originally published January 16, 2023 at 6:50 AM.
