Bryan County’s boys did not close out the year the way Coach Jason Napier wanted but he is far from discouraged about his team’s prospects going into the holiday break.
Coming off their first ever win over Savannah High the Redskins showed promise in a 61-59 loss to a good Screven County team on Tuesday night. The weekend was a bit of a downer as they went on the road and lost non-region games at Wheeler County (60-51) and South Effingham (74-57).
Napier will now turn his attention to getting the Redskins ready to make a run in the Region 3A-DII race. Bryan County (3-9, 2-4) next plays when it hosts Emanuel County Institute on Jan. 2, 2026, followed by a home game with Jenkins County three days later before going to Claxton on Jan. 9.
Those three teams are a combined 2-14 overall, 1-9 in region play, going into the holiday break and if the Redskins are going to be a factor in the region race, they need to win two of the three, preferably getting a sweep.
Napier believes his team is getting better the two losses last weekend notwithstanding and it will be reaching peak form when the region tournament rolls around in February.
“Screven’s a really good team,” Napier said. “They’ve got a lot of seniors and they had this one kid (Ladarius Hopkins) get hot. He made seven 3-pointers and they needed every one of them.”
Hopkins was averaging 6.8 points per game but he scorched the Redskins for 23 points, 20 in the second half, with six of his treys coming in that stretch to help the Gamecocks (7-3, 4-0) hold on for the win.
Darius Edwards was a one-man show for Bryan County as he scored 30 points, the second time this season he has scored 30 or more, and was outstanding at the foul line as he made all 16 of his free throw attempts. The rest of the team was 3-12 at the charity stripe.
“I told them (team) at the beginning of the season we were going to be a lot better at the end of the season than at the beginning,” Napier said. “I really believe that although we still have too many question marks about roles.
“I think we’re getting there,” Napier said. “In our system I’ve made some tweaks and things defensively to fit what we do and what our kids can do. Same thing offensively.”
Bryan County got off to a fast start against the Gamecocks, jumping out to an 18-10 lead only to see the Gamecocks score the first 10 points of the second quarter. It was a dogfight from that point on with neither team being able to build any momentum and sustain it.
The Redskins led 28-25 at the half and pushed the lead out to 36-28 only to see Hopkins shoot his team back into it.
After Edwards made two free throws with 2:33 left in the third quarter for the 36-28 margin Hopkins made a long-range shot on three straight trips down the floor, the third one coming with 12 seconds left in the quarter, to give the Gamecocks a 39-38 lead.
Trailing 47-43 the Redskins rattled off eight straight points, four by Edwards, for a 51-47 only to see senior guard Rodney Beckwith get a basket followed by five points from sophomore Kajay Collins to grab the lead for good.
“The best teams in the region are Savannah High, Portal, Screven and McIntosh County,” Napier said. “We beat Savannah High, lost to Portal by eight points, to Screven by two and McIntosh by three.
“We’re right there. I just need to find someone who can come in (off the bench) and give us a couple of good minutes a game. We’ve got some talented kids and no one is going to be wanting to play us in the region tournament as a lower seed.”