Fresh Off Fall Sports Successes, Bulldogs Preparing to Kick Off Winter Sports Season

Fresh off successes across fall sports, the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs are preparing to launch into winter games.  Girls and Boys Basketball Coaches Clinton Wolff and brother Kevin Wolff previewed the season for Carmi Kiwanis Thursday.

Clinton Wolff says due to the volleyball team’s run, the squad has only been practicing about two and a half weeks and just had their third full practice Wednesday with their first contest coming up this (Thursday) evening.  In fact, Wolff says the team will play it’s seventh game of the season before they ever get their seventh practice in, a problem he’s happy to experience.

“Six of the seven girls were not only on the volleyball team, but were a big part of that team.  And of course one of them went to state in tennis.  They’re competitive.  They know how to win and they like to compete.  I don’t know whether we’ll win or not tonight, who knows, but we will get better throughout the season.”

A little more about the team…

“Last year our record was 10-20.  We graduated 3 seniors but we do return 4 starters this year.  Senior Mara Serafini led our team in scoring last year with 344 points.  Senior Johanna Smith was second on the team in assists and fourth on the team with 27 steals.  We also return Junior Ashlyn Rager.  Ashlyn was second on the team with 118 rebounds and fourth on the team in scoring.  Sophomore Caroline Simmons was second on the team in scoring with 228 points and first on the team with 29 steals.  We also have four sophomores that will see time based on matchups and what we see from game to game.  Addi Elliott, Torrie Rider, and Jaya Smith are all sophomores that will see significant time at the varsity level this year.”

Wolff says Edwards County and Fairfield are probably the best teams in the conference this year.  Flora, Eldorado, and Hamilton County all graduated several senior starters and he sees his team in that bunch of teams this year.

“You find a way to upset somebody once or twice and now you can find yourself near the top of the league.  That’s somewhere we’ve been trying to get over the last six years.  We haven’t got there yet, but I expect us this year to be extremely competitive within the conference and be at the top half.”

Boys basketball coach Kevin Wolff says tryouts just finished up last week and the squad is made up of sixteen athletes, four apiece from each grade level.

“We have four freshmen, Jaxon Bradshaw, Dylan Winerberger, Brodie Brown, and Jace Courson.  We have four sophomores, Merrick Millhorn, Hayden Sauls, Colton Marvin, and Christopher Key.  Four juniors, Kade Stockton, Beck Huff, Gavin Holloman, and Mitchel Edwards.  And then four seniors, Trey Dixon, Landon Driscoll, Macen Haywood, and Gavin Peyton.”

The Bulldogs lost two solid performers from last year in Bryce Conner and Tyler Goemaat.  Wolff says the team had a good summer and played about 18 games.  As far as returning production for this year…

“Landon Driscoll was All Conference last year and named to the All-Tournament team at DuQuoin. He’s a third year starter at 10 points per game, 4 rebounds and 4 assists per game.  Junior Mitchel Edwards was All-Conference and was All-Tournament at DuQuoin and the CIT.  He averaged 12.5 ppg, 4 rebounds, had 70 three pointers last year and is creeping up on the all time list as just a junior.  Junior Gavin Holloman started every game last year. 7.5 ppg, 5 rebounds per game and had a great summer.  Our sixth man from last year is back, Trey Dixon. You’re going to see his production go way up this year.  He’s really coming into his own. Two guys, Mason and Gavin, that were JV starters last year.  Right now, Macen is slated in as our fifth starter and GP will be coming off the bench as what I like to call our enforcer.”

You’ll be able to catch Bulldog basketball all season long on 97.3 WRUL and also most games can be viewed live through the WRUL Sports YouTube channel.