By any means

The road to a second consecutive state title is sure to be a bit bumpy this season for Mills. That notion, though, has more to do with the Comets current situation than the increased parity that’s in Class 4A.

Mills (1-1) will have to maneuver its way through a challenging schedule for the next month and a half without one of the state’s top players in Javion GuyKing, who suffered a broken foot in Monday’s benefit game with Jonesboro. The senior, who’s expected to be sidelined four to six weeks, was one of only three returnees who regularly saw action during the Comets’ championship run last year.

Needless to say, there are others who’ll be seeing a bit more court time for the foreseeable future.

“Man, I tell you, we’ll take wins any way we can get them,” Mills Coach Raymond Cooper said, referring to his team’s 5753 victory over Little Rock Catholic on Tuesday. “We get [victory], then we’ll move on to the next game, and try to figure out what we’re going to do in that one.”

What the Comets did against the Rockets was get solid play from their trio of Q.J. King, Jabrae Shaw and Marcus Kendrick — three players who’ll have to score consistently if Mills is going to survive a brutal upcoming stretch. All three finished with at least 13 points, with King leading the way with a team-high 21, in the win over Catholic.

Mills will be off until next week when it plays at Little Rock Central, last season’s Class 6A runner-up, on Nov. 29. The Comets also travel to Class 5A No. 2 Little Rock Parkview (Dec. 9) and Class 5A No. 1 Jonesboro (Dec. 18) over the ensuing weeks. All three of those teams are ranked in the state’s top 10 as well.

“We’ve got a couple of other guys hurt, too,” Cooper said. “But we’ve just got to find a way, kind of like we did in this one [Tuesday].”