Pettit closer to home with Chargers
After years of leading the basketball program at Choctaw County, Gary Beals stepped away from public school and is finishing out his career at Winston Academy.
That starts the era of Chris Pettit, who comes to the school after a highly successful stint at Houston. Last season, Pettit led the Hilltoppers to a 20-6 mark and they were Class 3A, Region 4 champions with a trip to the third round of the playoffs. It was a great job to leave, but Pettit had some family reasons to want to get to Choctaw County.
“It’s a great school and I’m good friends with coach Beals,” Pettit said. “He told me that he knew that I wanted to get closer to home at Kosciusko and I’m closer now. I do miss my Houston kids and what we did there was special, but I’m excited about my team here. There’s a good foundation to build here. I think we can be pretty good by the end of the year.”
COVID-19 really disrupted the Chargers’ season last year and didn’t allow for hardly any flow to the season. The one thing that fans were able to see was the emergence of eighth grader Caleb Cunningham, who was looking pretty special before the season ended.
Cunningham is just a freshman but is 6-3, 175 pounds with plenty of room to grow. He’s currently on the football team along with many others as the team is trying to make a run to the state championship there.
Until then, Pettit isn’t scared to throw what he has into the fire. There are only seven players currently able to play and Pettit’s team had its first game already this week. By the time the entire team gets into place, it could be a big year for Choctaw County.
“Our main goal right now is to get better every day,” Pettit said. “We’ve still got a long way to go. We’ve got 21 on the roster and I think we’ve got seven in the gym. We’re going to play with what we’ve got. I don’t care what our win/loss record is this early in the season. It’s where we’re at towards the end that matters.”
Girls
Like the boys, 2020 was a tough year for the Lady Chargers trying to navigate COVID and coach Mandy Jewell has several players that couldn’t even play last year.
“I really have a whole new team because some of them haven’t played since they were in the ninth grade,” Jewell said. “In practice, they’re really ready to play ball, though. They’re learning a lot really quick. I’ve gone through all of our offense and defense and they’re picking up on it and ready to play. We’re going to be young so we’ll make mistakes, but we can fix them for district.”
Jewell said she has 17 players on this years team, which makes for a full bench of young players to work with in 2021. They’ve moved down a classification this season as the Lady Chargers and the boys squad will be playing in Class 2A.
The team will compete heavily with rivals East Webster and Eupora as well as Calhoun City and J.Z. George as competition will be stiff.