COURTLAND
In spite of their relative inexperience, the new players for the Southampton High School Indians showed their potential on the basketball court Wednesday night, winning 90-39 over the Charles City Panthers.

Sharone Bailey, coach for the boys team at SHS, said this year he has a young team of nine new players and only three returnees — two seniors and a junior. Bailey, who said he used to coach at Charles City, was looking forward to first official game of the season.

Charles City got the first basket within the first minute of the first quarter, and the Indians weren’t that far behind with their own. Bailey was compelled in those eight minutes to call out to different players, “What are you doing?” as a way to correct their playing. That evidently helped, as the boys steadily continued making points, with the score at 22-13 by the time the buzzer sounded.

The second quarter saw more progression on both sides, with the Indians at 48 to the Panthers’ 24 by the end. At the end of the third quarter, SHS had racked up nearly 20 more points, putting them at 67 to 32.

Charles City players were only able to get another seven points in the fourth quarter, while Southampton reached 80 by game’s end.

“They played with energy and effort,” Bailey said afterward of his Indians, and reiterated that several of they players had never performed before on the varsity level. “I’m proud of them.”

They two schools are scheduled to meet again in Courtland on Monday, Dec. 11 at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. for JV and Varsity games.

Meanwhile, the next game is tonight at 7:30 when they host the Franklin High School Broncos. That will be preceded by the Boys JV at 4:30 and Girls Varsity at 6 p.m.