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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

The West Forsyth boys basketball team just had one of its most successful seasons in school history with an overall record of 26-4 and 13-1 in the Central Piedmont 4-A.

However, West Forsyth didn’t reach its ultimate goal of winning the recently played NCHSAA Class 4-A championship at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem.

That said, now that the high school basketball season is over in North Carolina, now is a good time to catch up with third-year Coach Marlon Brim of the Titans to check on the state of the team.

“We had conference champions on our list, 20 wins on our list, make the playoffs” Brim said.

The season ended for second-seeded West Forsyth on March 4 at home after falling to Watauga 62-49 in the third round of the tournament. West Forsyth led 49-36 after senior Jacari Brim, the son of Marlon Brim, hit a layup with 2:36 left in the third quarter. However, the Pioneers trimmed the lead to 49-45 after the third quarter. Had it won, West Forsyth would’ve played host to eventual state-champion North Mecklenburg in the quarterfinals of the state tournament.

“We wanted to make a deeper run, but getting to the third round was good for us,” Marlon Brim said. “It was a good accomplishment. It was something that we wanted to do, get further along, but overall, I thought we achieved a lot of the goals that we talked about.”

West Forsyth won the conference title outright, which meant it was going to get a high seed in the state tournament.

“I thought the third round is where we could get,” Marlon Brim said. “I really thought we could get to the Elite Eight, which was the fourth round. So, I had my goals set for that. And talking to some of the players they had the same thing, and some of them wanted to play at the Joel. (Those were) some things that we talked about, that’s what I looked at was getting to the Elite Eight and then having a good matchup with the potential to get to the final four. 

“So, I thought we matched up well with everybody with a chance to win.” 

Before losing at home to Watauga (21-8), West Forsyth upended Marvin Ridge of Waxham in the first round and South Caldwell in the second round, with all three games at Simpson Gymnasium in Clemmons. 

“I thought we had a real good chance to really get to play North (Mecklenburg),” Marlon Brim said. “That’s what I looked at was getting to play North (Mecklenburg) in the fourth round. That’s what we had looked at as a coaching staff is that’s where we would have our best matchup.” 

However, Watauga won and advanced to play North Mecklenburg. 

“Watauga played well, and they took care of business (against West Forsyth),” Marlon Brim said.  

That loss ended the season, but coaches look at the season as a whole. That means going back to when practice started on Oct. 30 of last year.  

“I thought we played well. I thought we had a good summer,” Marlon Brim said. “We did team camp, a full week of team camp, then we were able to practice, and then we were able to play some more games throughout the summer. So, I thought we played well overall in learning how to gel, learning how to play together.  

“The summer for us was most important. And we were able to see those (new) guys and what they could do to help us better and what we could do to help them get better. So, overall, I thought they meshed well with what we wanted to do as a program.”

West Forsyth won four straight games to begin the season, including two conference wins against Glenn and Parkland before the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic started. 

“I thought we played well before the Spencer pairings,” Marlon Brim said. “I also think we played well up until the championship game.” 

That’s exactly what happened. West Forsyth was named the top seed in their bracket of the Frank Spencer tournament. It defeated Northwest Guilford and Reagan in the first two rounds at Mount Tabor, but it faced second-seeded Mount Tabor on its home court on the Saturday before Christmas. Mount Tabor pummeled West Forsyth 71-51, sending West Forsyth to its 14th straight loss in the past seven seasons against Mount Tabor. 

“That was our first time in a championship atmosphere, with a lot of kids with little championship experience,” Marlon Brim said. “So, for me, that was an eye-opener for us. We thought we were good, but that was a lesson of ‘hey, these are the things that would make up better.’  

“And I give our kids credit, we bounced back and won the next Christmas tournament.” 

The following week, West Forsyth played in the Yellow Jacket Christmas Classic in Sanford after defeating Green Hope of Cary 72-44 with the help of tournament MVP Jacari Brim, who scored 20 points.   

“We were able to win quite a few more games,” Marlon Brim said.  

After the tournament in Sanford, West Forsyth rolled off four straight wins. However, East Forsyth, which finished third in the conference, defeated West Forsyth 59-55 on Jan. 15 in Kernersville, just two days before it was scheduled to play a home game against Mount Tabor. It also turned out to be its lone loss within the conference schedule. 

Despite the loss to East Forsyth, West Forsyth pummeled Mount Tabor 53-38 in Clemmons, ending the 14-game losing streak against its rival.  

“I knew we would be ready. I knew we would be a different team,” Marlon Brim said. “I knew our mindset was different. I knew our kids understood exactly that playing our best, we would be the better team, and that’s what you saw. It wasn’t a fluke. It was just our kids were prepared, and they were really ready for that game.”

The confidence for West Forsyth continued to soar after the first Mount Tabor win, winning seven straight games, including defeating East Forsyth 68-44 in the rematch in Clemmons.  

The win against East Forsyth clinched a share of the regular-season conference title, but with one game left at Mount Tabor, should West Forsyth have won that game it would win the title outright. It did just that, defeating Mount Tabor 58-41 to receive the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament and securing the conference’s top seed in the state tournament. 

“We knew talent for talent that we could match up,” Marlon Brim said. “We thought at certain spots we were a little bit better. And beating them the first time after the Spencer gave us some confidence, and we just understood that the gameplan needs to be followed through and executed and if we did, we could come out victorious. That’s what we did.”

In the first round of the conference tournament, West Forsyth hammered Glenn 83-31 at home, then followed that with a 62-50 win against Davie County in the semifinals at Reagan. That set up another game against Mount Tabor.

The Titans led 37-24 with 3:45 left in the third quarter, however the Spartans (23-6) came back and won 63-55. 

“I just thought we didn’t execute to 32 minutes,” Marlon Brim said. “We executed for 29 minutes, and Tabor was able to score, make a run to win the game. But I also thought our kids weren’t truly locked in for 32 minutes.” 

Despite the loss to Mount Tabor in the conference-tournament championship, Marlon Brim still saw a silver lining. 

“If you looked at us when we played them the (other three times after the Spencer loss) of the four times, the other three times then we handled the business the first two times after that and we pretty much gave the game away the fourth time in the (conference-tournament championship),” Marlon Brim said. “So, to me I think we showed that we were the better team all three times after we played the Spencer game.” 

West Forsyth followed that loss with a 77-70 win against Marvin Ridge and a 54-47 win in overtime against South Caldwell before losing to Watauga. 

The Titans maybe didn’t reach the mountaintop, but it’s another step in building the program.

“I think it gives us a stepping stone to get better for next year to know what we have to do to take another step,” Marlon Brim said. “But we want to build on that this year. So, even the 26 wins that we had was very good for the program, but it wasn’t enough for us. We wanted more. Next year we feel like we can make another deep run with the new (NCHSAA) alignment. We’ve just got to be able to play and be ready for the summer and all that stuff.”

Next season seems far off, but it will be here in the blink of an eye. The team will also be without five seniors from this season’s team – Jacari Brim, Princeton Scott, Arrington Kee, Jordan Jones and Tristen Davis.

“The new guys came in and they accepted their role, they played a lot or didn’t play a lot,” Marlon Brim said. “They bought into the program. They bought into our core values, and they really bought into being a team and just overall building a program. And the only returning senior was Jacari and he was there when we got there (from Atkins).”

Jacari Brim, who won the conference player of the year last season, and was named all-conference this season, has signed to play at Appalachian State this fall.

“He helped lay the foundation, showing the guys whether they were new coming into the program or were returning, that hard work makes you better. And also, makes the program better,” said Marlon Brim. “So, I credit all those seniors. They came in and bought in to what we did with Jacari leading the team and leading the way for us.”

Marlon Brim has not only coached Jacari Brim in all four years of high school, he’s also his father.

“A lot of that is him working hard,” Marlon Brim said. “Him wanting to accomplish goals, and as a dad it’s my job to make sure that he accomplished those goals, and he does what he says he wants to do. So, being a dad I was very proud of the three years at West Forsyth, and even the one year at Atkins. That freshman year set him to get some college interest, and then he just took it from there.

“But as a father, very proud of him.”

Realignment for the NCHSAA has officially been set with the state going from four classifications to eight, starting in August. West Forsyth will play as the lone Class 8-A team in a combined Central Piedmont 8-A/7-A conference with Reagan, Reynolds, Parkland, East Forsyth and Northwest Guilford.

Mount Tabor will play as a Class 6-A team in the Piedmont Triad 6-A/5-A conference with Glenn (6-A) and four 5-A teams – Atkins, North Davidson, North Forsyth and Oak Grove. Even though the two teams will be in different conferences next season, Marlon Brim said that he and Coach Andy Muse of Mount Tabor have agreed to continue the rivalry with two regular-season games next season.

“It’s going to affect us,” Marlon Brim said of the new conference. “It’s a six-team conference. That will be 10 conference games. So, now we really have to go out there and build our schedule (of) seven nonconference games. We’ll probably do two Christmas tournaments, one including the Frank Spencer. And then we’ll do our MLK Classic. So, those are our 14 nonconference games (counting the other seven).”