Jags looking to take next step in Year 2 under Laatsch

Despite nearing the end of the challenging 2018-19 season, the Spain Park High School boys basketball team never wavered.

Wins were hard to come by in a 7-23 season and the Jags entered the final game of the regular season having lost nine of their previous 11 games. It would have been easy to mail it in, but Spain Park mustered one of its best performances of the season in an upset 47-46 win over Class 7A No. 2 Hoover.

“They kept fighting and believing,” said Chris Laatsch, who was in his first year as Jags head coach last winter.

Just three players return to this year’s team that contributed in a sizable manner last year. Cam Crawford was one of Spain Park’s top scorers last season and returns for his junior season. Jacob Jenkins is back, along with JR Lambert, who played the second half of the season with the varsity team.

“It’s a lot of inexperience, a lot of guys that have never played in a varsity game before,” Laatsch said.

After winning two of the first three games last year, the Jags endured an 11-game losing streak. Laatsch believes if a couple of those games had swung the other direction, the Jags could have built some momentum.

But this year, he expects Spain Park to be able to get over the hump in close-and-late situations. That comes from an unquenching desire to win.

“You have to hate losing,” he said. “You have to want to win so badly that you’re willing to do whatever it takes.”

Tactics are important to a basketball team, but Laatsch puts a heavy priority on relationships within his program. That process of coaches and players gaining mutual trust in each other began last year and will continue to progress this season.

“All that stuff is so important,” he said. “We spend so much time together, two major holidays you’re going to be doing basketball. There’s so much you’re going to put in, it’s such a long season. If you don’t enjoy being around each other, it just drains you.”

Now, most of the Jags players have been in Laatsch’s program over a year and know the expectations of every player.

Spain Park has four seniors this season, with Jenkins returning, football players Jake Horton and Austin Hutcheson joining the fray, and point guard Robbie Johnson. The roster is majority juniors, led by Crawford along with Blake Hay, Deacon George, Jax Hovanec, Colby Richardson, Braden Diclemente, Lambert, Dawson DeFalco and Jayson Webb. Justin Pegues and Colin Turner are two sophomores that Laatsch speaks highly of, and the roster is rounded out by Jaylen Ward and Josh Harrington.

In the month of December, the Jags play the likes of Clay-Chalkville, Pelham, Hoover, Thompson and Oak Mountain before playing in a pair of tournaments. Area 6 play begins in January and Spain Park will go up against three-time reigning state champion Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills and Hewitt-Trussville.

“It’s tough. That’s 7A basketball,” Laatsch said. “It should be fun and hopefully our guys will accept the challenge and be excited about it.”

The Jags will also host Arnold (Fla.), where Laatsch’s son Josh is the first-year coach, on Jan. 11.