By Thomas Sellers Jr.
“Who’s lineup is it anyway?” could be the working title for the beginning of the 2021-22 Brighton Cardinal season.
After a summer of limited player participation and football players slowly returning back to the rotation, Head Coach Stan Gatlin is admitting facing an uphill battle to get his team back on schedule.
“As I was telling the guys in there, the teams we are facing right now have been playing together and they know each other,” Gatlin noted. “Whereas with us, we don’t have everybody back who is supposed to contribute to the team. In our two games, we have two different starting lineups. That also means we have guys who haven’t practiced in weeks. Tonight was Nick’s first game back.”
Nick Moore wasn’t in the lineup when Brighton opened up the season against St. George’s. The Gryphons pulled off the victory and the Cardinals entered the Nov. 30 matchup against the Lausanne Lynx in the Brighton Gymnasium still in search of win No. 1.
Brighton jumped out to a 10-4 advantage but watched that lead evaporate into a 66-46 win for the Lynx.
With key pieces like Darrien Lewis and Emmanuel Thurman out of the lineup, Gatlin had to slowly work Moore back into his role alongside other guards like Andrew Thompson and CJ Bonner.
“Nick is my point guard and he just got back,” Gatlin said. “He’s trying to get back into the swing of things. He’s trying to get his conditioning back. It’s tough man right now.”
Things were looking smooth for Brighton in the opening moments with a 6-point lead. Then Lausanne closed out the first quarter on a 14-0 run sparked by guard Hayden Ledbetter. Ledbetter located a couple of teammates with creative passes for layups.
Lynx guard Jeffery Babb drilled a triple that made the score 14-10. Then Ledbetter took matters into his own hands with a layup to make the score 16-10. Lausanne closed out the first period with Jayden Bachelor using a spin move for a bucket giving the Lynx an 18-10 advantage.
In the second period Lausanne outscored Brighton 21-8. All of the Cardinals’ points came courtesy of Aiden Maclin. The young interior player made three layups in the post and nailed a jumper. But the Lynx led 39-18 going into the locker room. The Cardinals came out of the locker room with another outburst leading to an 11-0 run started by a Moore three-pointer. Maclin contributed with a put-back basket and Moore made a steal leading to a breakaway bucket. The scoreboard read 39-29.
Bachelor finally ended Lausanne’s drought with a layup and the Lynx proceeded with a 14-2 run to close out the third quarter. Brighton won the fourth quarter 15-13 but the Lynx were comfortably ahead and left Tipton County with a 20-point win.
Gatlin said all the lineup uncertainty has one clear advantage — giving his youthful Cardinal necessary growing pains to prepare for the upcoming district slate when the calendar turns to 2022.
“Trying to figure out who we are, what our identity is,” he said. “Because honestly right now I don’t know. We don’t have the pieces there to give me a good idea. The summertime is normally when you figure that out and the beginning of the season is when you tweak it a little bit.
“But this is our summer right now because I am trying to figure out who can do what, who can’t do what,” Gatlin concluded. “Who should come off the bench. I am trying to figure out all that stuff right now.”
