BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — The slogan underneath LaFayette High School’s basketball schedule this season reads “Unfinished Business.”
For the Bulldogs, the meaning is obvious. Last season ended mere minutes short of a state championship. For the Lady Bulldogs, it marks a fresh start under first-year head coach Audrianna Walker.
Both programs also start over in a new classification. LaFayette moves down from Class 2A to Class 1A and joins Area 9 with Loachapoka High School, Notasulga High School, Wadley High School and Woodland High School. And like every AHSAA program, both teams will play with a 35-second shot clock for the first time.
The Lady Bulldogs open Nov. 14 at the Handley Tournament, and both teams’ first home game is Nov. 16 against Ranburne beginning at 1 p.m.
Bulldogs eye another trip to Birmingham
LaFayette went 26-8 last season, won its third straight area championship and reached the Class 2A state final at BJCC Legacy Arena in Birmingham. The Bulldogs were tied 18-18 with Section at halftime before the Lions hit a string of third-quarter 3-pointers and pulled away for a 54-42 win.
“They made some big shots in the third quarter,” coach Chase Lewis said after the game. “We had some hands in their faces.”
Amilleon Hughley led LaFayette with 17 points in the final, and Cameron Thomas added six points and seven assists. Both made the all-tournament team, and both graduated with an eight-player senior class.
“Even though I lose two really good standouts, I really lose eight seniors,” said Lewis, who enters his sixth season as head coach. “I say [to this year’s team], ‘We haven’t done anything. You guys are carrying a target on your back that was set by [Amilleon] Hughley and Cameron Thomas.’”
Lewis is 102-49 at LaFayette, with area titles in each of the last three seasons, Final Four trips in 2024 and 2026 and an Elite Eight appearance in 2025. The program has won four state championships, the most recent in 2015.
Senior Jayden Thomason, who had eight points and six rebounds in the final, is the focal point. He is a five-year varsity player and four-year starter, and every one of his seasons has ended in the Elite Eight or Final Four.
Kemare Harrington, a three-year starter who was the team’s second-leading scorer as a sophomore, returns for his senior season. Saban Chambers, who had a big second quarter in the state final during his first season with the program, skipped football this fall and has been in the gym every day.
“I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people,” Lewis said about Chambers.
Junior Ty’Kaden Williams, a big, athletic post player, also moves from a reserve role into the starting lineup.
The new starting point guard is Keilan Dent, a transfer from Valley High School.
“It’s like having Cam Thomas all over again,” Lewis said. “As the point guard, he’s an extension of me on the floor.”
Thomason said his five years in the program have shaped him as a player, and he hopes to lead the Bulldogs to a state title. With last year’s seniors gone, he is trying to take on a bigger voice.
“I’m trying to use what the previous group of guys taught me to be more vocal,” Thomason said.
The new classification doesn’t change his outlook.
“I don’t really think anything changes the goal, still, to beat everybody,” he said. “Everybody on the schedule.”
Still, Area 9 will be no easy step down. Lewis called Wadley, which reached the Final Four last season, the favorite until proven otherwise. He said Loachapoka has talented athletes across its programs, Notasulga has a history of area tournament upsets and gets better as the season goes on, and Woodland always competes hard.
“We are the hunted,” Lewis said. “So every game we have to be on point.”
Area 9 play begins Dec. 8 at home against Woodland. Before that, Lewis expects Ranburne on Nov. 16 and Lee-Scott the next night to come in hungry for an upset.
“Yes, we want to get back to Birmingham. We want to get back to the big game. We want to finish the business,” Lewis said. “But we know it’s going to be step by step.”
Lady Bulldogs resurgent under Walker
The Chambers County School Board hired Walker on June 17 as the program’s 14th head coach. She replaces Travis Carswell after a season in which the Lady Bulldogs went 7-16, finished third in Class 2A Area 6 at 3-3 and lost 43-40 to Reeltown in the area tournament.
It is Walker’s first high school head coaching job, but she has coached youth basketball around Lanett High School and Valley and has done tutoring and mentoring work since 2019. She also teaches math at LaFayette.
Walker starred at Valley, earning Alabama Sports Writers Association all-state honors three times, then played at Southern Union and the University of Northwestern Ohio before a knee injury cut her college career short.
The bigger adjustment for her players may be that shot clock. The AHSAA voted in April to require it in all varsity games starting this season, and Walker, who played with one in college, has built practice around it.
“Thirty-five seconds, 35 seconds, 35 seconds,” Walker said of her message to her team.
She said she expects endurance to be the biggest challenge for high school players, but she sees an upside for those who go on to play in college. Most of the Lady Bulldogs’ drills now run on a 35-second clock, and Walker is stressing quality shots over rushed ones.
“We are on 35 seconds, but we’re not going to make bad decisions because we have a shot clock,” she said.
Walker has three seniors she counts on for leadership, and she has been challenging senior guard Kennedi Williams a lot. Skyy Boston is already a name most fans know, and freshman Kamariuna Tibbs is versatile enough to play the two, three or four. Walker also wants sophomore center Jakalia Cammon to use her size to dominate.
What excites Walker most is her team’s growing basketball IQ and how they’ve begun to understand concepts without too much instruction.
“I can call a play, but you play within that play,” Walker said.
Cammon said Walker’s drive has stood out from the start as the Lady Bulldogs get adjusted to their new head coach.
“I can tell that she really wants to win,” Cammon said.
Cammon called the shot clock a wait-and-see adjustment.
“I feel like it’s gonna be a lot, but we just gotta play through it, play hard,” she said.
Her goal is the same as the boys’: She believes the Lady Bulldogs can make a run to the finals.
Walker called Loachapoka the team to beat in Area 9 and said Wadley always produces solid shooters. The team’s goals start with winning the area, hosting the area tournament and making the playoffs.
She built a tough early schedule on purpose, starting with the Handley Tournament against bigger schools such as Benjamin Russell and Russell County.
“I want the competition. I don’t want to wait and get competition in the playoffs and have to adjust,” Walker said. “I’m OK with it, even if we lose a game, but we’ve got better as a team. I can live with that.”
The schedule also sends Walker back to Valley High School, where she starred, on Nov. 20, with a rematch Jan. 29 in LaFayette.
“I’m not going home to lose,” she said. “We’re going to lace up and give everybody the best shot that we have.”
