SPARTA – There’s no looking back for the Highland boys basketball team, first-year coach Christian Toombs said. He’d prefer to move forward.
Toombs replaces Chris Powell, who went 43-48 in four seasons as the coach of the Fighting Scots, capturing an outright Knox Morrow Athletic Conference Championship. Powell left for Granville in May after guiding Highland to a 2-21 mark overall last season. The Scots were 2-12 in the KMAC before falling at Heath 69-30 in the first round of the Division II district tournament.
Branton Howard was the only senior on last year’s squad.
“This is a different program, and we’re going in a different direction than what we’ve been in the past,” Toombs told the Mount Vernon News. “It’s nothing that was done wrong— it’s just we saw some areas that we needed to get better in. We’ve hit the weight room a little bit more. It’s definitely a different program.
“Our program will be based on how we enrich our community, how we give back to our community, how we excel in the classroom, how we respect our teammates— things like that. They have done a great job buying into that stuff.”
What’s the biggest change on the court?
“Coach Toombs came in and said we’re going to be a defensive team,” senior guard Landon Remmert said. “We can score 50 points a game, but if we don’t stop teams on the other end of the floor, it doesn’t matter. So I think we’ve definitely taken a totally new approach into how we’re going to play the game.”
Remmert feels right at home with the change in philosophy.
“I’ve always felt like more of a defensive player,” he said. “But I feel like this year— especially being one of the only seniors— I definitely came more into a leadership role.”
That’s a good thing, because Toombs is looking for his three seniors— Remmert, Wyatt Groves (guard) and Bryant Marcum (forward)— to lead the team this year.
“We’re gonna need those guys to step up and get everybody to understand what their roles are on the team,” Toombs said. “We’re definitely going to need that senior leadership from those guys.”
Also returning from last year’s team are juniors Jordan Bellamy (forward), Garrett Fitzpatrick (forward), Cooper Merckling (guard) and Kadin Murta (forward); and sophomore Gavin Hankins (guard).
“We all push each other pretty hard, so we’re all forcing each other to get better,” Remmert said. “We’re definitely more experienced than we were last year. We’ve got a couple of new kids who have changed it up and made us push each other a lot harder.”
New to the varsity roster are juniors Ashton Hamilton (guard), Rider Minnick (guard) and Taz Taylor (forward).
“I feel like this year, more than in the past, we have a group of guys that are more tightly-knit and are ready to do whatever they need to do to get it done,” Remmert said. “Coach Toombs came in this year and really turned everybody’s attitudes in a 180. I feel like we’re definitely a more hard-working team than we have been.”
