With the current conference coming to a close, this is an important year for the varsity boys’ basketball team.

“With this being the last year of the cap-8, we are looking to go out with a strong finish,” coach Todd Seymour said.

The team lost three starting players to graduation last season in Trey Vest and Theo Howard, and lost Xach Gill who will be graduating early this year to pursue his football career.

“We are certainly going to be smaller this year, which is fine. We have some bigger guards that are going to have to play in the post this year,” Seymour said.

The squad has given coach Seymour high hopes for how they will finish.

“I want to have a chance to win the conference championship and make the playoffs,” Seymour said.

Through the first 6 games the team is 3-3 in non-conference play, including a 50-38 victory over Rolesville Nov.29 at home.

The game plan for the Cougars remains similar to that of last year.

“We will do a lot of the same things. We do have to adjust a little bit due to the lack of size,” Seymour said.

Even though the team lacks size this year, they still look to be successful at the guard spots.

“We are going to be athletic and hard to guard offensively. We hope rebounding will not be a weakness,” Seymour said.

The Cougars have added two key transfers that they hope will have a positive impact.

“Damion Barrett and Ti’andre Elliot are two guys who have looked good in practice. We will see if that can carry over to games.”

Barrett and Elliot are both juniors.

Seymour looks to two veterans to drive the team’s fortunes.

“Demetrius Everett and Isaiah Jones are our two most experienced players. We need both of them to have big years for us to be successful,” Seymour said.

The Cougars made the playoffs last season for the first time in five years.

Seymour said, “We hope our playoff experience from last year can help us because we are going to have a lot of close games this year.”