By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

ALABASTER – The AISA AAA Kingwood Christian School in Alabaster had one of the most impressive winter and spring sports seasons in the school’s history. The boys basketball team made an appearance in the AISA AAA Final Four before losing to eventual champion Bessemer and finished with a 17-10 record while the girls also made an appearance in the Elite Eight. The baseball team, after winning just 19 games in the previous five seasons combined, won 22 games this spring, the most in school history.

One of the byproducts of the school’s athletic success in the winter is now being fully appreciated, as five basketball players, three boys and two girls, have accepted scholarship offers to play basketball at the college or junior college level.

On the girls side, Destinee Washington and Zarria Morgan will be playing at the next level. Washington, who only played five games this past season for Kingwood before suffering a knee injury, will attend Huntingdon College in Montgomery while Morgan will play at Georgia Northwestern Technical College, a junior college located in Rome, Ga.

For the boys, Justin Gipson, Josef Ransom and Reggie Mann will represent Kingwood at the next level. Gipson, the point guard for the Lions who hurt his ankle in the Elite Eight game and did not play again, will play for the University of Mobile. Ransom will attend East Mississippi Community College, a junior college, with the hopes of earning a spot at a four-year school. Reggie Mann is on his way to Jefferson Davis Community College, just outside of Mobile.

EJ Gant and Brandon McGibley also held basketball scholarship offers, but both turned them down to play football, Gant at Virginia Union and McGibley at a JUCO school in Mississippi.

Head boys basketball coach Danny Davis shared that all of his basketball players, with the exception of one, held a GPA in the mid to high 3’s. What Davis wanted to relay was the idea that private schools, not just Kingwood, can be a place for student-athletes to earn an athletic scholarship.

“Private schools have a stigma where we don’t play tough competition,” Davis said. “These kids can play and have good grade point averages. A lot of parents do want their kids to go on and play college sports, and I just want parents to know it’s not just the AHSAA putting kids in school. The AISA is doing it too.”

Through the somewhat controversial Alabama Accountability Act, there are scholarship offers available to students and families looking to transfer from public to private schools. For more information on Kingwood, visit Kingwoodchristianschool.com.