After posting an 8-18 record in 2023-24 — including a 1-5 record in the 2A Southwest Quadrant — the Kemmerer High School boys’ basketball team is looking to make a return to the 2A State Tournament, after a quick exit last season.

Practices for the 2024-25 campaign began in earnest during Thanksgiving week, with the season officially underway this weekend, with games on the road at Glenrock and Wright.

“Things are going pretty good, other than not having our full team due to illness,” said KHS head coach Matt Stewart, now in his third year at the helm. “But I’d rather get it out of the way now, rather than have to deal with it down the road. I haven’t had a full team for practice this year, but the boys that are able to be there, they’re showing up and working hard, getting back into basketball shape. They’re getting their lungs back, and looking good.”

The Rangers will have some big shoes to fill. Gone to graduation is the team’s top scorer, All-Conference and All-State selection Chase Bowen, as well as stalwarts Skyler Rogers and Kaden Witbeck. Bowen’s 20.7 points/11.2 rebounds-per-game average will be tough to replace, though Stewart has a solid pair of returning seniors, as well as a group of sophomores and freshmen, eager to fill that void. Ethyn Perkins (9.1 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists per game) and Gabe Wiswell (6.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.9 assists per game) will provide senior leadership for Stewart, as well as points.

“I only have two seniors this year — Ethyn Perkins and Gabe Wiswell,” Stewart said. “Then I have three juniors, five sophomores and six freshmen. Ethyn and Gabe have been playing varsity since they were sophomores — Ethyn especially — so they have plenty of varsity experience. They’ll be our captains, and they’ll be good, strong leaders for us. They’ve been helping us push these younger kids along these first couple of weeks.”

The juniors on the roster also have a wealth of varsity experience, with Bryson McGill (3.2 points, 2.1 rebounds per game) and Kane Jimenez (.8 points, 1.0 rebounds per game) seeing the court in the majority of the varsity games last season.

“For the juniors, we have Kane Jimenez, Bryson McGill and Bennett Pollard,” Stewart said. “Kane and Bryson especially, they got quite a bit of varsity time last year. Bryson was huge for us come tournament time — he gave us a lot of good minutes, a real spark off the bench. I’m excited to see what he can do for us this season.”

As for the younger players, Stewart said they’ll need to adjust quickly to the speed of the varsity game, though he likes what he’s seen so far in practice.

“We have a couple of sophomores who will give us some good minutes,” Stewart explained. “Cage Bowen, he’ll be our first guy off the bench. He’ll play two quarters of JV, and quite a bit of varsity. We’re still kind of evaluating some of the others, seeing how they come along with their development. But those young kids are gonna get a lot of playing time, at both levels.”

The Rangers will pile on some miles before the Christmas break, heading to Glen

rock and Wright this weekend, then to the Flaming Gorge Classic in Green River and Rock Springs the following weekend. Kemmerer will host the Fossil County Classic the weekend of January 10-11.

“We’re going over to Glenrock and Wright the first weekend of the season,” Stewart said. “We wanted to do something a little different this year, get a chance to see some teams on the other side of the state. I think it’s going to be a pretty good challenge for us — we’re going to play Wright on that second day, and I think they’re probably the favorites to win the 2A this year. So it will be a good test, right off the bat.”

As he looks at the season as a whole, Stewart said he’s confident that, although the team skews young, the Rangers can make some noise in 2024-25.

“I think talent-wise, we’ve got quite a bit coming back,” Stewart said. “We’ve got some guys that are going to do some good things. We have people asking, ‘Well, who’s going to replace Chase Bowen’s scoring?’ We’ve got four or five guys — if we spread those points out among those guys — we’re going to be just fine. Ethyn Perkins was our second-leading scorer last year, so we’ll see him contribute a little more. I’m not really worried about replacing one person — we’ve got a good group of five to six guys that will all contribute at a higher level. We’ll work out the nerves this first weekend, get back into the swing of playing ball again.”