The Vandalia Vandals have gone through three different coaches in a three-season span.

Last winter was Coach Joe Vanzo's first one running things.

Although there were a few highlights, the Vandals ended up 14-18, losing to Flora at the Fairfield Regional first round.

The leading scorer from last season (Wade Brannon) and starting point guard (Isaac Sachan) graduated as did forward Ian Whitehead and guard Brady Elder.

But the ones back have experience with this coach and that is something to build upon.

Five-eleven junior guard Qwentyn Stombaugh returns after starting for the Vandals as a sophomore.

Andrew Casey, a 6-3 junior forward, returns along with 6-5 junior Lucas Bowers.

This pair will give Coach Vanzo some size in the lane.

Taking care of the ball this season will be point guard Brenton McCarty.

The 5-8 senior started the final six games last season for Vandalia.

The fifth starter, according to Coach Vanzo, will come from competition.

Three of the suitors will be 6-2 senior Carter Robbins, 6-2 junior Tanner Stone and 6-1 sophomore Paddy McDowell.

Each brings strengths to the table with Robbins having the most experience.

The junior class features 6-foot Ayden Carroll ad 6-foot Camden Ruot and 5-8 Adam Buscher and should provide minutes off the bench.

You have to dig back six seasons to final the last time Vandalia finished above .500 (17-16) and Coach Vanzo looks to turn things around in 2025-26.

“We have much experience returning from a team that consists of a lot of juniors. We struggled in close games last year so we must execute better in close games to have a good season,” said Coach Vanzo, the ABV 2020-21 (Covid19 season) 2A “Coach of the Year” at Hillsboro. “Everyone in our top seven is expected to contribute regardless of who starts or comes off the bench. We have a really nice mix of kids who work hard and love to compete. McCarty gets after it on defense and is a capable shooter/scorer. Stombaugh is extremely athletic and brings back the most points on the team. Casey is a very good all around player and really came along in the second half of the season. Bowers is probably our most improved player from the off-season and had a great summer in the weight room. We are looking forward to the season.”

Although they haven't been a powerhouse program in boy's basketball over the 103 years, the Litchfield Purple Panthers are on the brink of a special milestone.

With five victories (hopefully more than that by the end of the season) the program will reach 1,500-wins in its history.

That is nothing to sneeze at as many successful schools have never gotten close to that.

It averages out to about 15-victories a year and that is something for the all of the players and coaches over the years to be proud of.

The have exactly 20 seasons of 20 or more wins.

Coach Daniel Bonnell would like to add the 21st to that list this season but he will do so without seniors from last winter Keenan Logan, Braydon Ronco, Nate Schaake, Will Cress, Matavious Jones and Harrison Thomas.

Five players who return, according to Coach Bonnell, have experience at the varsity level from a year ago, which will be what the Panthers are all about.

Max Leitschuh, a 6-2 senior, returns for Litchfield.

Five-ten senior guard Tucker Maguire also looks to start as does 6-4 senior Ethan Saathoff.

Six-foot Titan Hires and 5-9 Sam Schwab also are seniors who Coach Bonnell can work with.

The juniors involved for Litchfield that are moving up to varsity include 6-1 Brody Dykema, 5-11 Ben Ronco, 5-11 Chance Holliday, 5-8 Landon Wernsing and 5-9 Casson Schmidt.

Schmidt is coming off of an injury that put him on the shelf for most of last season.

Coach Bonnell is hoping he will return to full strength when the season starts.

Maguire missed almost two months of the season with a severe ankle injury but returned in January.

The kids returning were all playing well at the end, that came with a loss to Greenville in the regional semifinals.

“Once again, we are looking at having significant turnover from last year’s team to this year’s team,” said Coach Bonnell. “We expect growing pains at the start of the season as players take on more significant and impactful roles as compared to last year. We have a tough non-conference schedule with the goal of being prepared for conference and post-season play.”

Ten of the teams Litchfield hooked up with last season won 20 or more games with Auburn and Jacksonville Routt posting 30 and 29 wins respectively.

There have been some really good teams in the history of Pana Panthers' basketball, including a state championship team in 1987-88, a second place team in 2000-01 along with six sectional titles and 24 regional trophies in the case.

Like Litchfield, who is approaching 1,500-wins, these Panthers crossed that threshold three seasons ago.

Coach Adam Metzger won a regional and 29-games in 2021-22 but since then the Panthers have just 37 total wins and last winter the 10-22, 3-6 mark wasn't pretty.

Pana took it on the chin against a strong schedule last season.

Nine of the 22 defeats were by single digits with the final one being a 50-44 first round loss to Shelbyville at the Macon Meridian Regional.

Seven of the players from 2024-25 are gone; Matthew McFarland, Brayden Carlson, Sam Sims, Jaedyn Wills, Isaiah Harbert. Carson Peters and Hayden Blackwell were part of the graduation Class of 2025.

For Coach Metzger, however, there are a pair of starters returning and some other kids ready to get things going in the opposite direction of last season's finish.

Cash Lynch is the most noteworthy returning player as the 5-11 senior is a varsity veteran in multiple sports as he is coming to basketball season after being the starting wide receiver on the Panthers' playoff gridiron gang.

Lynch paced the Pana offense with 13.4 points a game and almost three assists a night as a junior.

The other good news heading into the season is that the other starter coming back for a senior season was the second leading scorer last winter.

Six-foot Madyx Angel added 11.5 p.p.g.

Those two will dictate most of what the Panthers will do in 2025-26 and will jump start any turnaround that happens for this program.

The others need to be ready for the battles that this program faces each season.

Coach Metzger mentioned a junior and a boatload of sophomores he is hoping will be ready for prime time.

Eian Vaughn, a 6-foot junior, only got in a couple of varsity games a season ago.

Easton Malisia, a 6-foot sophomore, managed to get into 27 of the Panthers' varsity contests as a freshman and added a couple of points an outing.

Five-nine sophomore Jax Czaikowski and 6-2 sophomore Micah Meadows will have chances to log varsity minutes.

Tucker Beyers, a 6-2 sophomore, and 6-5 sophomore Brayden Hicks add some size to the roster.

Ace Henschen, a 6-foot sophomore, will also be a part of the rotation according to Coach Metzger who is a win away from 150 in his career at Pana.

“We have a good group of seniors who led us last year. We are looking for our sophomores and juniors to step up in a big way this season. We will be putting a lot of pressure on the basketball this season and the expectation is to be the scrappiest team in the area,” said Coach Metzger.

The missing pieces from last season will be sorely missed by head coach Jason Darr at Southwestern as the Birds look to be a different style of team in 2025-26.

Top player and three year starter Ian Brantley dragged a bunch of numbers with him out the door after graduation.

The 6-7 senior averaged nearly a double-double in points (17.1 p.p.g.) and rebounds (9.4 r.p.g.) and was rewarded for his efforts with some individual awards, including a first team spot on the ABV 2A all-south team.

Senior guard Ryan Lowis was the second leading scorer for Southwestern (12.3 p.p.g.) and he will also leave big shoes to fill.

Southwestern went 19-14 a year ago but they never put together any long winning streaks.

The best run was three victories in-a-row.

Early on Coach Darr's club posted wins over 3A teams Jerseyville and Carbondale and late in the year a win over Alton Marquette in the regional set them up with a semifinal contest against Staunton.

However for the fourth time in 2024-25, the Bulldogs beat the Birds and, by doing so in February, ended the Southwestern season with a 50-32 victory.

Coach Darr had a couple of other seniors; Ike Austin and Logan Custer, who combined for another six points a game and they are no longer around.

The club won't have a senior on the squad in 2025-26 as most of the returning players came from the sophomore and freshman classes a year ago.

Four players who will be juniors got in action last season for the varsity.

Five-nine junior point guard Connor Wood returns (5.1 p.p.g./3.7 a.p.g.) and 5-10 junior guard Cason Robinson (7.6 p.p.g.) bring back experience and scoring ability.

Trenton Brackett, a 6-2 junior forward, got into some games last season.

Reed Campbell, another 6-2 junior, didn't play last season but returns.

Five-seven junior Tucker Emde and 5-10 junior Mason Eyers were mentioned by Coach Darr as players with opportunities.

Other juniors figuring to see varsity playing time would be guards Tucker Emde and Mason Eyers.

Sophomore 5-10 John Kunz got into averaged 3.3 points a game off the bench in 2024-25.

Six-two sophomore Carter Bacon, 6-3 sophomore Carter Watson and 6-foot Alex Darr are sophomores worthy of a look-see in the preseason.

“We will be much different than team of our recent past. We don't have a varsity player over 6-3, so our style of basketball is going to change. These guys have had a great summer putting in the work to become a full court basketball team, and should be fun to watch this season,” said Coach Darr, who will begin his 16th season at the helm in November. “We will be a young inexperienced group and should be a lot better in February than we are in November. I am excited to see this group play.”

Three seniors have left the program at Carlinville from a season ago and one of them took 14 points per game away.

Coach David Suits will be missing graduated senior guard Dom Alepra along with Class of '25 classmates Colin Pope and Kaney Roper.

Alepra was the top scorer last winter.

They were part of a Cavaliers' club that managed just a 13-19 mark, and just a 1-8 finish in the SCC.

Carlinville lost its final four games of the season, three at the end regular season and the first round of the regional.

Hillsboro sent the Cavaliers home with a 49-46 loss at the Greenville Regional.

Seven of the defeats came in games that were winnable, losing by less than 10 points.

Coach Suits has four kids who are returning starters and some others seeking to fill the other job openings.

Triston Thompson and Sawyer Smith are returning starters for Carlinville.

Thompson, a 5-10 senior, netted 8.8 points a game as a junior while 6-3 senior Smith was second to Alepra is scoring with 13.5 p.p.g.

Five-ten senior Augie Rowe added a few points last season but he participated in all 32 of the varsity contests that Carlinville played.

The same can be said for 5-11 senior Tate Duckels as he added 9.5 points a contest for the Cavies and 6.3 rebounds a game.

Smith was the top Cavalier on the glass with 6.9 r.p.g.

Coach Suits is hoping that his program will start winning some of those close contests in 2025-26 that they have typically lost.

The last above .500 edition of Cavaliers' basketball came in 2013-14, which was also the last time the school took home a boy's basketball regional championship.

If that is going to happen this season, his other kids will need to step up.

One senior holdover, 6-3 forward Noah Convery, returns after mostly junior varsity action last season.

Coach Suits listed a trio of sophomores he is hoping for good things from.

Six-three sophomore forward Reed Convery, 5-8 sophomore guard Joel White and 5-11 sophomore forward Cameron Cooper should push the seniors for minutes.

“We return several starters from a very competitive 2024-25 team,” said Coach Suits. “We will return a very athletic group and look forward to playing a very competitive schedule this upcoming season.”

One would have to turn back the calendar nine years to find the last season that the Gillespie Miners posted a winning won-loss mark.

It was 2015-16 where Gillespie went 19-10.

Peabody and Sherman would have to set the “way-back” machine to 2002-03 to find the last regional championship for this program, a state-ranked #5 at the time club that finished 26-2.

They lost to eventual third place finisher Warrensburg-Latham in the sectional semifinals.

A 2016-17 record of 13-15 was the final double-figure win total as the program has had just a 50-158 overall mark since.

Even so the program will be under new management in 2025-26 with head coach Jake Kellebrew offering a new beginning for the squad that suffered through consecutive 24 loss seasons.

Kellebrew was an assistant coach for the Miners last winter but takes the keys and the wheel this season.

He mentioned four seniors that will have the first shot at the starting lineup.

Six-four forward Brayden Enslow, 6-4 forward Brock Sherman and 5-9 senior guards Collin Griffith and Joey Reid should get the first call.

Coach Kellebrew mentioned three juniors; 5-8 guard Matthew Plovich, 6-foot guard Michael Marcacci and 6-4 forward Mitchell Clark.

Add to the list eight sophomores who could move up at any point during the season.

Six-one sophomores Stephen Otten, Nolan Hostettler and Rafe Stangle will be joined by 6-4 Xzavier Spenser, 6-foot sophomores Levi Hughes and Dane Diesselhorst as well as 6-2 Dallas Barker and 5-10 Haydn Hegel.

This roster has the look of a new beginning for the Miners' program that won just five games a season ago, one in the SCC before dropping their final eight to end the year.

“The starting lineup is still undetermined. We have a very well-rounded group of athletes out this year. We will be able to mix up our lineup and give our opponents a lot of different looks. We feel like we can turn to any of these kids and get solid minutes,” said Coach Kellebrew.