The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER reuniting with his former Temple Christian Academy Suns’ coach Jamal Smith and team-mate Deyton Albury in AAU games, Garreth Edgecombe is playing his collegiate basketball with the Caldwell Community College in Hudson, North Carolina.

Edgecombe, who turns 20 on December 1, said the junior college fits his game style perfectly. “It’s been great so far. It’s a lot of hard work. Our practices are fast paced, so there’s no time for fooling around,” Edgecombe said. “We have non-stop practices, so you have to be ready every day we come out.”

As Caldwell Community College prepares for the new season, Edgecombe is expected to vie for a swing position, playing either small or power forward - a major adjustment for the former swingman who played between shooting guard and small forward.

“Training to get ready for the season is a lot more than I expected,” Edgecombe pointed out.

“It’s a high pace level of competition, which is a big jump from what I was used to playing in the Bahamas. It’s a big jump from playing high school basketball to playing college basketball.

Just the intensity alone of practice is something that Edgecombe is trying to get through right now.

“You have to keep the same level of intensity that you walk into the gym with,” he said. “It’s very vocal, so you have to remain focused on and off the court. They stress that it could be the difference between winning and losing a game.”

So far, Edgecombe said he was able to work on improving his game, especially his ball skills.

“The coaches are doing a great job of getting us all ready,” he said. “We all have to develop our ball-handling skills because we don’t know what situation we will find ourselves in when the game is being played. They want to make sure that we become complete ball players on every level. Even though we have some short guys, we work on every aspect of the game because we don’t know what the situation will be in a game, so we work on every aspect of the game.”

As long as he can develop his speed, running up and down the court, Edgecombe said he is expected to play a vital role on the team this year.

They will begin their regular season in November, but they have a pre-season tournament in October in Atlanta where they are expected to face some of the teams they will contend with during the regular season.

Over the summer, Edgecombe said he was delighted to get to be reunited with coach Smith and Albury to play in a few tournaments to get ready for the transition from high school to college. “He’s been there from the jump helping me and guiding me along the way,” Edgecombe said. “So that was a big help for me.”

Edgecombe said it’s a major accomplishment for both of them moving on to play at the collegiate level.

He said he was also pleased to hear that some of his other team-nates and friends from Temple Christian and Galilee Academy are also attending college, even if they are not playing basketball.

“Right now for this season, we just want to make it to the postseason where we get to play in front of a lot of division one college coaches,” he summed up. “So once we can get through our region, we can qualify for the big tournament at the end of the season.”

Edgecombe is a 2019 graduate of Galilee Academy, who was enrolled at Franklin Prep Academy in Clemson, South Carolina.

Albury left Temple Christian Academy to complete his high school at Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kansas, before he went to Believe Prep Academy in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He’s now at Chipola Community College in Marianna, Florida.