THOMASVILLE — The first basketball practice of the year was underway on Monday afternoon as the Brookwood Warriors get set for the 2023-2024 season. The Warriors had a successful season last year as they finished with a record of 22-8 and went 7-3 in the region. However, they fell short early in the playoffs and struggled when facing talented teams like Southland and Deerfield-Windsor. The good news is head coach Nate VanDuyne knows exactly what the problem was and how to fix it.

In their last game in the playoffs against Lakeview, the Warriors lack of rebounding prowess was exposed. Shooting wins games, but rebounding wins championships and if Brookwood wants to compete against the best they have to rebound like the best.

“That’s the single biggest thing we’ve got to get better at,” said VanDuyne. “We’ve really chipped away at that and tried to solidify our style of play.”

For the Warriors, they will be leaning on big men Walker Jackson and Roscoe Jones out of Pelham to crash the boards and get those rebounds the Warriors need.

This is also a very young Brookwood team, much like last year. However, coach VanDuyne believes that, with a full year of experience under their belt, the young Warriors will be ready this year.

“We’ve got a really good core coming back this year. We, at times, started two eighth graders last year, we started some freshman, played sophomores,” VanDuyne said. “We were young and we’re still going to be young, that’s the crazy thing. But, the beauty of it is that youth now has at minimum of one full year in place of varsity experience. So, I think that’s going to benefit us greatly as we move into this coming year.”

With a young team also comes a need for leadership, something the coaching staff is looking for. The Warriors lost three players to graduation, including first team all-region player Chris May. Those three seniors were leaders for this team last year and with them gone, there’s a hole to be filled.

“I talk about a lot of strategic things for us to be better, but we’re also going to have to find some leadership because those three guys were really good in that regard. I think the talent is there, but the cultural leadership traits are the things that are going to have to be there for us to continue to improve.”

Brookwood’s first game will be against Byne Christian on November 13 at home.