With four consecutive years of victory, there’s no question that the Licking Heights basketball program is doing something right–and if you ask varsity coach Shaun Fountain, it’s all in the tight-knit friendships of his team.
“Our superpower is that we are a team. Our people work together and we win within,” Fountain says. “We even have actual brothers and families on this team. I’ve coached eight to 10 sets of brothers in my time with Licking Heights. You start to know what families you’re working with.”
The high school and middle school boys teams were recognized at the March 19 regular Board of Education meeting at Licking Heights Middle School. Assistant Athletic Director Rita Pendexter presented the middle school teams. While the 7th grade boys team may have gone down in the LCL tournament, they went undefeated in their regular season for the second year in a row.
The 8th grade boys team won the LCL Tournament Championship, which they also won last year as 7th graders. The team achieved an overall record of 13-3. Head coach Mike Evans shared that the three regular season losses gave his team a lesson in overcoming adversity and fueled their desire to win games even more.
“Losing was a powerful motivator,” he says. “We became obsessed with getting better and stronger together.”
Meanwhile, the high school varsity team earned their fourth LCL Buckeye Division championship, with an overall record of 16-7. Both the LCL Coach of the Year and LCL Player of the Year–Shaun Fountain and senior Alieu Ceesay, respectively–were from Licking Heights.
Aside from team honors, both the boys and girls varsity high school teams notched multiple individual player honors. This included:
—Boys first team honors for Ceesay and junior Ezra Bobo
—Boys second team honors for sophomore Nate Lovinsky and senior Boubacar Conde
—Boys honorable mention team honors for senior Joel Busker
—Girls first team honors for freshman Layla Booth
—Girls second team honors for sophomore Karsyn Johnson
—Girls honorable mention team honors for junior Symaya McDougall
Fountain joked that his team makes his job as coach easy since they do such a good job of leading and guiding each other. In fact, Fountain called Ezra Bobo “The best example of leadership I’ve ever seen in my basketball career–which includes playing, coaching, and my professional experience.”
“We’re getting accustomed to celebrating our boys basketball team,” Athletic Director Ellie Geiger told the board.
“We’ll see you next year,” Fountain added.