With the high school basketball teams starting action in less than two weeks, the season officially started on Friday with the first North Central Florida High School Basketball Media Day.
The event was held at Gainesville High School and organized by GHS boys basketball coach Mike Barnes and Mainstreet Daily News Sports Director Mike Ridaught.
“We had one of these (media day) about three years ago over at Eastside,” Barnes said. “This is something we would like to have every year before the season starts.”
Barnes enters his fourth season as head coach at Gainesville after leading the Hurricanes to back-to-back district titles and regional semifinal appearances the past two seasons.
“We really got better as the season went on last year,” Barnes said. “We were 11-11 and then figured out how to win games down the stretch. They were all close games.
“We return eight guys and have a lot of experience. They have been working hard in the weight room all summer and fall.”
Gainesville moves from Class 6A to 5A this season, which means the Hurricanes won’t have Buchholz in its district anymore. The Bobcats beat Gainesville twice during the regular season a year ago before the Hurricanes defeated Buchholz at the buzzer in the district tournament championship game.
Despite that, Buchholz won a playoff game for the first time in 15 years and won 18 games under first-year head coach Elliot Harris. Harris is ready for year two with the Bobcats.
“We made the playoffs and got to the second round, so we were pretty happy (with last season),” Harris said. “We lost six seniors and will have some guys who played on junior varsity but they were able to watch the guys last season and will be counted on this year.”
There were 14 boys and 13 girls teams took part in the media day. Among those teams were two-time defending boys state champion Williston and another team that will play for a three-peat, the Hawthorne Hornets girls basketball team.
“This is just a special group,” said Hawthorne girls basketball coach Cornelius Ingram. “They are just ready to go and ready to work. Defense is our calling card, and we’ve shown that in big moments like last year’s state title game (against Wildwood).”
Williston is looking to fill in gaps created by graduation.
“We lost seven seniors, so that will be tough,” Williston boys basketball coach Jim Ervin said. “But we have a lot of faith in the guys we have and the guys that need to step up.”
Boys and girls basketball teams in the area will play preseason games next week with regular season games starting on Nov. 18.
To listen to the media day interviews,
Below are the teams that were interviewed. Click here to listen to each segment.
Segment 1 – Williston girls, Chiefland girls, The Rock girls, Newberry boys, Buchholz boys
Segment 2 – Williston boys, Oak Hall girls, Newberry girls, P.K. Yonge boys, GHS boys
Segment 3 – Fort White boys, Santa Fe (Alachua) boys, Eastside boys, Countryside Christian boys, Santa Fe (Alachua) girls
Segment 4 – Bell boys, St. Francis Catholic Academy boys, GHS girls, Hawthorne boys, Hawthorne girls, Eastside girls, Bradford (Starke) girls, Bradford (Starke) boys, Trenton girls