The WAHS boys varsity basketball team enters the season with high expectations. They are coming off a strong season last year with a 17-5 record, their season ending with a loss to Lord Botetourt High School in the regional tournament.

The Warriors are a very different team from last year, having graduated last year’s five starters (Sam Chisholm, Will Mason, Chase Stokes, Jake Maynard, and Eli Sumpter). Now, the young team must fill the holes in the lineup.

“We’re really young and really inexperienced this year, but I think we have really young talent,” Head Coach Darren Maynard said. Senior Carter Berry said, “it’s been kind of a weird adjustment to go from coming off the bench for a couple minutes, energy guy role, to a role of playing more minutes.” Berry credited his past teammates saying, “Its been helpful to have the experience of being on the team and watching those guys and learning from them to come up and immediately have the role of being a major contributor.”

Maynard employs the “Next Man Up” attitude. “Whoever works the hardest gets the next spot,” junior Jared Carter said, “I think we have a good chance, we all work really hard.”

The Warriors lost their season opener at Turner Ashby, 61-65. Western immediately rebounded with a 55-45 win in their home opener against the Covenant Eagles. This game was the Warriors first test in the Tip-Off Tournament hosted at Warrior Gym. “I thought we played really hard against Covenant. We had a good first quarter and a good last quarter. We sort of had a low in the middle of the game where some of our youth and inexperience caught up to us,” Maynard said. They followed up with a comfortable win over Grace Christian to finish the tournament.

Western opened up district play with a 30 point win over the Louisa County Lions. They were led by senior Josh Casteen who scored fifteen points, his career high. Casteen even made two straight field goals while getting fouled.

Following the home win, the Warriors faced a strong Monticello squad with a hostile Friday night crowd. However, the Crozet Crazies were out in full force at the rival’s gym. The Warriors were losing almost the entire first half, but held their ground to prevail 57-51. The very next day they played Fort Defiance. Freshman Chris McGahren led the team with 21 points in another 57-51 victory to improve their record to 4-1.

The Warriors look ahead to a tough road game on Friday against Charlottesville High School, a team they split games with last season. A win would make them 3-0 in Friday night games, showing the team is not afraid of big crowds and more pressure.