Spain Park strives for more in Black’s second season – Shelby County Reporter

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

The Spain Park Jaguars have carried the standard of success for basketball in Shelby County for quite some time. After missing the postseason last year, the players and coaching staff have hope that this is the year it returns to business as usual.

“I think this year, it’s just a lot more of a difference of how everybody’s bought in, and how special this group can be, because we have the talent, and we have the IQ, and we understand the game with this group,” junior Tommy Morrison said. “And I think we can really do something special.”

The Jags finished DJ Black’s first season as a head coach with an 11-20 overall record, starting the season 4-0 before losing 11 of their next 12 games going into Christmas. Spain Park then finished area play with a 2-4 record, before losing 54-39 to eventual area champion Chelsea in the semifinals.

That team was filled with six seniors, but the vast majority either got their first season of regular varsity play or transferred in before last season. Impactful players like Josh Fonbah and Crawford Blevins have since graduated, but plenty of scoring is still coming back.

Morrison and Harrison Stewart were Spain Park’s lone All-County selections as Honorable Mentions, and they’ll lead the way on offense once again. All but two players on the Jags roster is an upperclassman, a contrast from last year when depth was being built.

Now, players like Sam Fox, Cooper Gann, Andrew McQueeney and Quinn Davis are coming back, and the Jags will also have a pair of football players arriving in the coming weeks in newcomer and big post presence Reed Oatridge and sophomore three-sport standout Nash Davis.

Black believes that the experience in tough games last year is the difference between the veterans of last year’s team and this year’s veterans.

“The experience is as good as the players, if that makes sense,” Black said. “Last year’s team was senior-loaded still, but they didn’t have much varsity experience, so they had to go through some growing pains and stuff like that. And last year’s schedule, it was very challenging as well. But I think that provided growth for the program because when you keep in mind when you’re playing these top programs throughout the state, trying to put the best schedule possible, not just your varsity’s playing that schedule. So that’s what truly helped, and Harrison touched on it, we’ve got program depth now.”

Stewart agreed with his coach and said that as players, going into their second year of the system has been easier than the first. It’s now become second-nature to them, and as chemistry grows, he believes the team will grow.

“I’m really excited,” Stewart said. “I feel like, with this being coach’s second year, we’ve really kind of got a chance to understand everything and we were speaking the same language now, and we’ve just got a lot of young guys who actually, they love it just like the older guys do. I think we’re going to really feed off each other all year. As a team, we complement each other in every way. So, I think as long as we just stay connected, chemistry stays good, I think we really have a chance to do something special and I can’t wait. I think it’ll be fun.”

Black is also optimistic about leaders like Morrison and Stewart and how they’re carrying the program into the season. He is also impressed with how the rest of the team has filed right behind them and created a true united front.

“I’m really excited about this upcoming season having the leadership that we have,” Black said. “But like we said, we don’t just have leaders, we have good followers on this team. We have good guys that accepted roles and so forth.”

That chemistry and those improvements will be tested against arguably the toughest schedule in the state of Alabama.

After opening with Central-Phenix City, Mountain Brook, Homewood and Pinson Valley, the Jags will face Hoover and Oak Mountain twice as well as a tournament game with Albertville and a road trip to Black’s former team in Thompson.

It’s not just limited to in-state teams though. The Jags will face two Mississippi teams in DeSoto Central and Columbus in a pair of neutral-site showcases before heading to Norcross, Georgia to play in the Peachtree Corners Invitational. There, they’ll take on the reigning AAAAAA (6A) runner-up Newton before facing a quarterfinalist in Norcross.

Those came after summer live period trips to Georgia and Tennessee to tune up Spain Park for the coming season.

It’s all part of Black’s effort to play a more national schedule to give his players additional exposure to top programs outside of the state and help prepare them for area play.

“I love Alabama basketball, but I didn’t get into high school coaching to just play regional games,” Black said. “I’m looking to try to put national schedules together. I’m looking for our guys to be recruited nationally if they can and put them on different stages. And that’s something when that opportunity presented itself, we were able to do so.”

Morrison and Stewart have fully embraced the challenges that lie ahead because they believe it will benefit them down the stretch.

“I think it’s really going to test us mentally just because when we look at our schedule, we’ve got to be ready to prepare for every game,” Stewart said. “Like, we can’t really relax after we play a good team thinking that, ‘Alright, we’re going to have an easier opponent,’ because we really don’t know, so I’m really grateful that we can get tested like that early in the season especially, because it’ll pay off later, for sure.”

Black wants to carry on the tradition at Spain Park that one of his coaching idols, Chris Laatsch, helped establish, and that’s competing for state titles while sending people to play in college.

That work started in the offseason in the weight room and summer ball and will carry on into the pre-area slate. For Black, it’s all about instilling mental toughness and a consistency of effort that lasts throughout the season.

So far, he’s seen that, and it’s what excites him and the team going into the year.

“That’s what prepares these guys to learn how to prepare,” Black said of the schedule. “There (are) no days off. There’s no games off, there’s no practices off, there’s no lifts off, and these guys have embraced that, and they’ve embraced it, and it’s been fun to watch.”

Spain Park starts the season on Thursday, Nov. 6 with a trip to Phenix City to face the Central Red Devils. It’s the first meeting between the teams since Central beat the Jags in the 2023 Class 7A Final Four.