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The Ariton Purple Cats may be young heading into the 2024-2025 basketball season but they come into it with confidence.

Artion graduated a big senior class from last season, including one of the all-time leading scorers in school history, Ian Senn.

“We graduated almost everyone and our guy that has been the guy for us for several years, Ian Senn, is one of those that graduated,” AHS Coach Brett Goodson said. “I’m not saying we’re rebuilding but we’re trying to build on the success we’ve had with our B-team and junior high teams. They’ve sort of self-titled themselves the ‘Young Guns.’ We know we’re young and green but we have confidence. So, we want to win some games and keep building on that confidence and hopefully surprise some people.”

Goodson was proud of the way his young team worked in the offseason, though many of them weren’t able to work out with the basketball team due to football.

“We have a lot of guys that play football, so we didn’t get to see most of them (in offseason workouts),” Goodson said. “The guys we were able to workout in here, got their shots up and did a really good job with skill work and conditioning.”

Ariton features just two seniors on this year’s team but Goodson expects them to lead the way.

“Tristan McGuire is our only senior back from last year and we also got Aven Cook to come out and play,” Goodson said. “Aven is a back-to-back state champ in baseball and we hope he can bring some of that winningness and grittiness from the baseball field over to the basketball court. He’s a great athlete and those two our lone seniors but we need them to bring that senior leadership.

“Neither of them has a lot of experience but we also have sophomore Addison Senn and Easton Kilpatrick, who played a lot of minutes on varsity for us last year. They bring a lot of knowledge and court awareness to the team.”

Ariton is scheduled to open the varsity season on Nov. 21 against Kinston at home but that date is up in the air due to football. If Ariton wins its playoff game on Friday, the start date for varsity will likely change. Regardless of when the season officially begins, Goodson wants to see his team competing.

“I just want us to be able to stay the course because there’s going to be times where we’ll be green and our inexperience will show,” he continued. “We just have to compete and not let those moments turn into flurries for the other team scoring points. We have to stay grounded and keep competing.”

The Ariton junior high boys picked up a 46-44 win over Geneva County on Thursday to finish the season 11-3. Paxton Cravens led the junior high Cats with 15 points, while Cole Davis scored 10 points.