New Hope Trojans Back In The State Tournament For The First Time Since 2008

NEW HOPE, Miss. (WCBI) — New Hope Trojans boys basketball team are back in Jackson for the state tournament in ten years.

The New Hope Trojans are riding high after back to back twenty plus win seasons. The Trojans finished the regular season at 22-7, and just a couple of weeks ago they won the district tournament for the second straight season.

“We knew that was the first step to going to Jackson,” said guard Kyree Fields. “We knew that we had to accomplish that first. We won it last year. We wanted to go back to back in 5-a and 4-a.”

“We went in there knowing that we would do well and play as a team,” said center Andrew Junkin. “But the feeling of winning to come away from with a championship to set yourself up good with playoffs with those home games. That was big for us.”

“It’s great when you accomplish a goal that you set out at the beginning of the season,” said head coach Drew Mcbrayer. “Which was one of our goals to win a division title, and being the two seed going into it because we had slipped up and lost a game during the regular season. It made it more fitting for us to go over there and win the district championship.”

Following the district tournament, the Trojans played two straight home playoff games, and they defeated Ripley and Rosa Fort to make it to the state tournament for the first time since 2008.

“We want to leave a legacy here,” said forward Tyler Stevenson. “And we just want to do big things. Show people that we can actually do it.”

“We are leaving our names on the wall hopefully,” Junkin said. “And to walk away from this school leaving something behind like that. That’s really special.”

“You love it for the kids to be able to go down there and experience something like that to play in Jackson in the coliseum for the state tournament,” Mcbrayer said.

New Hope is three games away from hoisting a gold ball for the first time since 2008.

“That is the ultimate dream,” Junkin said. “We thought we were going to win last year. We got our hearts broken. I told the seniors walking away for not winning that’s not how I want to go out.”

“I feel like we got a good chance,” Fields said. “I feel like it’s a lot of good teams. I don’t feel like no body else has got a seven footer and a six eight like Tyler. I feel like we got a real good chance of holding the gold ball at the end.”

“It would be a big deal,” Stevenson said. “I think it would show the underclassman that if they work hard they can actually do it, and pull it off too like we are trying to do.”

New Hope will face Lanier at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson on Thursday at 5:30 pm.