By Thomas Grant Jr.
The 2025-26 school year has seen the sport of basketball gain more prominence at Chapin High School.
Head coaches Marquett Carr for the boys and Terence Jones for the girls led their respective programs. Each program showed improvement from last season and produced All-Region players.
The Lady Eagles’ Sami Stevenson and Amoria Wright were selected, while freshman guard Alaya Douglass was named Best Newcomer.
On Monday, Carr brought his All-Region selections guards Brayden Francis and Carter Coggins and the Eagles to Lexington/Richland School District Five rival Irmo for the opening round of the Class 5A Division II playoffs.
Despite losing the two meetings this season and 10 straight overall, Carr entered the contest with optimism.
“We did like the matchup, especially the quick turnaround,” he said. “We just finished our season on Thursday and so having to play this one on Monday, at least we knew each other. We’re very familiar. Both prior matchups were close.”
Chapin had an early 6-2 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers by Francis and Coggins. Irmo used its size advantage upfront with its All-Region selections Khiry White and Oshan Browman to take a 9-7 lead into the second quarter.
As the Yellow Jackets built a double-digit lead, Francis kept the Eagles in the game. He finished with 19 points, 11 in the first half, with Coggins adding 10 points.
With White leading the way with 21 points, followed by Browman with 17 and Christian Brown with 10, Irmo pulled away for the 59-42 victory.
“This just killed us inside,” Carr said. “They had the size. We played more zone than we played all year, so we just knew we had to keep them off the glass, make them shooters. They did a really good job of making the shots they had and even when they didn’t, they just killed us off the glass.”
Following the game, Carr praised his seniors for helping the “change the culture” for their willingness to challenge themselves to improve. As Jones prepared the Chapin girls for Saturday’s first-round home game against the Lugoff-Elgin/St. James winner, Carr sees a greater appreciation from the community for the sport.
“I just shared a quote with the team that ‘people will often forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. And so that was evident when you see the stands packed and people wanting to be involved and what Coach Jones is doing on the girls’ side, well, we’re just trying to bring awareness to basketball in our town and just be an institution that our town can be proud of.”
