HANCEVILLE, Ala. – The West Point High School JV Scholars’ Bowl team won the Alabama Scholastic Competition Association (ASCA) JV State Tournament March 6 at Wallace State Community College.
Coach Lee Henry said the great thing about winning a JV title is that it shows the program has a good pipeline of young players who will be able to keep the tradition alive for at least a few more years.
“We are in the thick of the season now,” Henry said. “We just managed to win the ASCA JV state championship (JV is classified as students in grades 10 and below). We have our varsity state tournament at Jeff(erson) State Community College in Hoover on April 10. We have won the last three in a row, and are hoping to stretch it out to four.”
JV team members are Ava Pruett (State MVP), Abram Motte (All-State), Alen Lechner, Cole Chamblee, Thatcher Armstrong and Collin Cooner.
“Then, of course, we travel to Chicago on the weekend of April 24-26 to defend our national championship,” Henry said. “Winning at this level takes years of hard work and dedication. It takes building a certain culture and mindset among the kids on the team. The older, veteran players help out the younger ones and they all hold each other accountable.”
Henry said, as a coach, he started trying to build that kind of dynamic as soon as he began at West Point back in 2012.
“During that time, we’ve had unprecedented success,” he said. “We’ve won the county championship all 14 years that I have been here. We’ve won several varsity state titles, a jv title and a national championship as well. It has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work to not only build a team of this caliber, but to maintain it year after year. I’m excited to see how the rest of this year plays out – whether we can ‘four-peat’ at varsity state, and whether we can successfully defend our national championship.”
Henry said the team would be grateful if any local businesses considered helping out financially.
“The Scholars’ Bowl is not a big revenue producing activity,” he explained. “Running a program of this caliber is extremely expensive. We rely a lot on donations to keep us going. We appreciate the consideration of any contributions being made.”
