Returning to form: Lee-Scott basketball season reminiscent of the past decade
Lee-Scott basketball made the Final Four with both the boys and girls teams this season, mirroring the Warriors' success a decade ago.
After starting the 2023 playoffs with two dominating wins at its home court, Lee-Scott Academy sent both the boys and girls basketball teams to the AISA 3A Class Final Four this season. Despite not reaching the championship game, for longtime Warriors fans, this season's success might have incurred a sense of deja vu.
The 2012 3A Class Final Four also featured both of Lee-Scott’s basketball teams. That season, 11 years ago, Lee-Scott brought back two state titles.
Both the boys and girls teams were forces to be reckoned with during the early 2010s; the girls secured back-to-back state titles in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and the boys followed right behind with a state championship appearance in 2011 and a championship win in 2012.
Each team concluded that season with several AISA All-State and All-Tournament players, including then senior guard (and future runner-up on ABC's The Bachelor), Madison Prewett.
Leading the teams' dominance, Madison's father and current Auburn University basketball Chief of Staff, Chad Prewett set the foundation for Warrior basketball. Prewett was the head coach of both the Lee-Scott girls and boys teams from 2007-2014, and left with five state titles under his belt.
“[Coach Prewett] didn’t settle for average,” said Lee-Scott Athletic Director William Johnson, who took over as boys basketball coach after Prewett. “He built a standard that was on a high level. He took that mindset of blue-collar hard work, and it laid a foundation, so that’s pretty special.”
Corbin Delaney
(An exerpt from Noah Basketball on Prewett's impact a decade ago)
During the 2012 playoff run, Prewett bounced back and forth between the teams’ schedules. He became one of the few AISA coaches to win a boys and girls championship on the same day. Corbin Delaney with Noah Basketball wrote that this double victory wasn’t anything new to Prewett, as he also led both Escambia Academy boys and girls basketball teams to the championship win in 2004.
The Warriors remained on top of the 3A pedestal over the years, continuously producing strong season finishes. One stand-out feature that the 2012 teams can relate to toward this year’s Final Four finish for both girls and boys is their rivalry with area foe Glenwood.
Between the two teams in 2012, Lee-Scott ended the season 4-2 against the Glenwood Gators, with the girls going undefeated. This year, the Warriors were reminded of this feud as the boys lost their only AISA game of the season by one in the Final Four to Glenwood, and the girls watched their rival advance to the championship game where they were met with a tough loss against Clarke Prep.
With the mix of Prewett’s coaching techniques and the two league-dominating teams alongside him, the 2012 Lee-Scott basketball organization put the school on the map. This group of Warriors is remembered as new and upcoming versions of Warriors basketball follow the path to victory that was set years before them.
“I think the overall state of the program in basketball is in really good shape,” Johnson said. “We’re not a team that people just play on, we’re a program.”
— Story by Kacie Barrett with contributions by Noah Griffith
