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Fort Payne preparing for Albertville

By Lew Gilliland
The Times-Journal

Published November 19, 2009

Fort Payne High School boys’ basketball coach Anthony Reid believes fans will be impressed by how much the Wildcats improve over the course of the season.

But, he cautions, the transformation is not going to happen overnight.

“When it’s all said and done, this is going to a very good basketball team,” he said. “We’ve just got to be patient with them, keep working with them.”

The process will continue tonight when Albertville comes to town for a varsity doubleheader. The girls will play at 6, followed by the boys at approximately 7:30.

Fort Payne (0-1) is coming off a 100-43 loss to Hazel Green on Tuesday night. Before the Cats can correct their on-court problems, Reid said they must correct how they approach the game mentally.

He said Wednesday’s practice was a good example.

“I think it goes back to their attitude,” Reid said. “I think they came back to practice dreading it because they thought it was going to be a hard practice. What we needed to do is come back and work on some things and not dread it. Like I told them, it’s just one loss, whether we lost by one or lost by 100. We just needed to come back and improve and get ready for the next ballgame.”

Albertville (2-0) owns victories over Scottsboro and Arab. The Aggies are led by 6-foot-3 forward T.J. Vines, a junior. He gets help from 5-8 junior guard Donte Spurgeon and 6-3 senior forward/center T.J. Pams.

The Aggies have quickness, athleticism and depth and are capable of pressing and playing a more up-tempo style than previous Albertville teams.

“They’re pretty good,” Reid said. “I think they’ve got most of them back from last year. It will be a tough ballgame.”

GIRLS: This game will be a homecoming for first-year Albertville coach Jay Shankles, a former Fort Payne player.

“They’ve got a new coach this year who does a good job with all of his teams,” Fort Payne coach Steve Sparks said. “He coached the Ashville girls for several years and was the JV boys’ coach at Guntersville. No doubt, he’ll have his team ready to play.”

Albertville (0-3) has lost to Douglas, Arab and Scottsboro. Key players for the Lady Aggies include 5-10 senior post Chelsea Jenkins, 5-4 junior guard Erin Sloan, 5-8 junior forward Amber Barhorst and 5-4 sophomore guard Brittany Copeland.

Fort Payne (1-0) is coming off a 54-51 victory over Hazel Green. Sparks said his team did a nice job trapping and defending the perimeter but fouled too much.

“I thought we picked up a quality win on the road,” he said. “We beat them twice last year, [but it was] down to the wire both games. They returned relatively all their players, same as us.

“When we scheduled the game, I knew then that it was definitely going to be a tough game. They’ve got a good program and good tradition.”

Sparks said his team needed to cut down on the fouls tonight and do a better job rebounding.

“Looking back at the stats, Hazel Green had a couple of girls that had five or six offensive boards, and they were not big girls,” he said. “That’s obviously a point of interest that we’ve got to do a better job on.”

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