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On Tuesday, Oct. 24 a media session hosted by Thunder Radio was held at Boskey’s Bar and Grill for the TSSAA 4A District 9 boys and girls basketball teams.

Attending the event were coaches, players and media members from the Coffee County Central, Columbia Central, Lincoln County, Shelbyville Central, Spring Hill and Warren County high schools.

Each team was given an opportunity to discuss their expectations for the season and highlight their star players.

First up were the members of each girls basketball team, and Lady Raiders head coach Joe Pat Cope along with sophomore Natalie Barnes, junior Channah Gannon and junior Olivia Vinson, who recently committed to Lipscomb, were first to speak.

As always, expectations are high for the Coffee County Lady Raiders, a program that has only lost 16 games in the last five years.

Cope said of his team, “All this team cares about is winning, they don’t care how many points they score.”

Although the Lady Raiders have had successful seasons, one goal remains unaccomplished: a state title.

 “It’s not going to be easy”, said Cope. “Getting to the state title has been our Achilles heel”.

The Lady Raiders will look to accomplish that goal when the season gets underway.

After the girls’ teams spoke to the media, it was the boys’ teams’ turn, and Coffee County were once again the first ones to speak.

Present on behalf of the Red Raiders was head coach Andrew Taylor, as well as seniors Cooper Reed and Jackson Shemwell.

Coach Taylor also has big expectations for his team. “Getting back to the district championship is where we want to be”, he said.  “It’s going to be a challenge, but we got to be us: we got to play hard, play smart, play together, and understand who we are.”

There were some other topics of discussion at the event, one such being the new foul bonus rules set in place by the TSSAA.

Under the new rules, teams will now shoot two free throws for common fouls when in the “bonus”, which will eliminate the “one-and-one” scenario, and teams will reach the bonus once the opposing team commits five fouls in each quarter.

Coaches and media members were also polled on where the teams would finish in the division standings.

In both polls, the standings for the girls were predicted as follows: Coffee, Lincoln, Columbia, Warren, Shelbyville and Spring Hill.

For the boys’ standings, the media poll predicted a standings finish of Warren, Coffee, Columbia, Shelbyville, Spring Hill and Lincoln, while the coaches poll predicted a standings finish of Columbia, Coffee, Warren, Columbia, Shelbyville and Spring Hill.

Both Coffee County basketball teams will tip off their season on November 14th when they host Cane Ridge.