White Knoll boys hoops improving

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer

Columbia - Winning basketball seasons have been hard to come by recently at White Knoll. This year both the boys and the girls teams are working on fixing that.

Neither team has had a winning season since 2019-2020, and the girls have gone 15-69 from November 2020 – February 2023.

This season, in the second year under head coach Willie Thomas, the young boys are 7-6 on the eve of Region 4-4A play. The girls team is 9-4.

In Thomas’ first year with the boys team, the Timberwolves had just three seniors while several underclassmen got a lot of playing time. White Knoll finished 12-15 and second in the region behind Lexington, which won the 5A state championship.

“We kind of got it turned around last year,” Thomas said. “We’re just working. We started with young kids last year, five, six freshman and four sophomores. I think we’re meshing and the focus now is to keep getting better.”

Thomas spoke after his team gave perennial favorite Blythewood a run for its money Dec. 3. The Bengals won 55-53 but the Timberwolves held the Bengals to just 8 points in the third quarter. Leading scorer T.J. Lewis (23 points) had just 3 points in the second half. Bryan Schofield, a 6-4 freshman forward, led White Knoll with 16 points and six rebounds, showing a keen awareness under the nets.

“Right now we don’t really understand what it is we’re trying to accomplish,” Thomas said. “I can tell them and show them, but it takes time for them to really understand it. Hopefully after Christmas I think we’ll be able to do a lot of things. We just want to have a chance. Like tonight, we had a chance, but the kids made some mistakes right there in the end. It was physical out there.”

As basketball wrapped up in December, it appears that the boys team is getting accustomed to each other on the floor.

Since dropping the close game at Blythewood, the Timberwolves fell again to the Bengals and lost to Westwood twice, but they also beat Gilbert twice, Lower Richland, and Fort Dorchester. They went 2-1 in the Orangeburg-Wilkinson Christmas Tournament, beating Lake Marion 69-42 Dec. 27, falling 58-51 to Bethune-Bowman Dec. 28, and topping North 78-61 Dec. 30.

In 13 games, Schofield is averaging 12.9 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. Sophomore Peyton Jennings leads the team with a 13.2 scoring average. Senior Ryhan Cepeda averages 10.9 points and 2.2 boards per game.

The Timberwolves opened 2025 action against Lower Richland Monday and open Region 4-5A play at River Bluff Friday.

The girls team is clearly bouncing back from a 6-22 effort in 2023-2024. The Timberwolves are 9-4 and have won six straight games going into Monday’s non-region game against Lower Richland.

Seniors Shaelyn Hayes and Emory Waters-Inman lead the way for the Timberwolves.  Hayes is the scoring leader with 14.4 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. Waters-Inman averages 12.5 points and 7.9 boards.



In football, the Timberwolves finished the season 8-6, falling 29-25 to Irmo in the 5A Division 2 lower state championship game Dec. 6. Defensive back Devin Geronomi made the All-Classifications All-State team. Quarterback Landon Sharpe made the 5A All-State team.