By Kevin Eckleberry

kevin.eckleberry@lagrangenews.com

LAGRANGE – The new-look LaGrange Grangers will hit the court on Thursday for the school’s annual blue-white scrimmage.

The members of the boys’ basketball team will be split into two, and they’ll get after each other during the scrimmage that begins at 7 p.m.

Some of LaGrange’s players will be back on the court Friday for another special event.

The Gardner Newman Middle School team will play the freshmen on the LaGrange High team.

That game will be played at Gardner Newman at 5:30 p.m.

A year ago, LaGrange won a third consecutive region championship and advanced to the quarterfinals of the state tournament.

Most of the key contributors from that team graduated, though, and many of them will be playing college basketball this season.

Despite those losses, the team will hit the court with the same lofty expectations.

“One thing coach Scotty (Alexander) says me and all the players, it doesn’t matter who we have or what we have, the standard’s the same,” said Mark Veal, LaGrange’s third-year head coach. “You want to try to get the number one seed, you want to win the region tournament, and make a run at state. And we’ve been very fortunate in the past few seasons to have success.”

The players with the most varsity experience are Bo Russell and Daz Williams, and they’ll be joined by fellow seniors Daz Williams, Jay Benton, Covan Huzzie and Jalen Watson.

Most of the players will be getting their first significant taste of varsity playing time, but the team did have a busy summer with more than 20 games.

LaGrange also participated in a fall league, so the basketball players who aren’t members of the football team gained some more experience.

LaGrange will play a preseason game at Heard County on Nov. 15, and it opens the regular season on Nov. 21 at Newnan.