PLATTE CITY – The Platte County boys’ basketball team is coming off its worst season since 2019 but will look to improve from a 2023 campaign that ended with eight wins and 18 losses.
Platte County senior Judah Vignery has scored 30 or more points three times so far this season.
Following two straight 20-plus win seasons in 2021 and 2022, Platte County took a step back in 2023. Looking to replace some graduated players, senior Judah Vignery will lead the show.
“We lost some good seniors, obviously Chandavian Bradley and Boston Wahlert were kind of the main guys as far as most points and accolades and all that type of stuff,” Platte County head boys’ basketball coach Rick Hodge said. “That’s going to be tough to replace that type of scoring and losing Chandavian is big in terms of height and size because when you look at this year’s team, we don’t have that.”
Vignery was a starter as a junior and one of the first players off the bench as a sophomore. Last year, he averaged 14 points on a 48.3 percent rate from the field and 36.8 percent from downtown.
“Judah is going to need to take a lot of the load, not just scoring but also in a leadership role and I think he’s going to have a pretty solid spot as long as he stays healthy. We’d like to run a lot of sets through Judah and try to free him up for as many shots as possible off screens and so forth,” Hodge said.
Senior Connor Currence and junior Jaden Peterson are expected to take on larger roles this winter. In 2023, Currence was second on the team on 3-point percentage and Peterson averaged 5.5 points off the bench.
“Jaden is improving quite a bit too from where he was last year, he was getting more minutes at different times in different scenarios and he’s improving in a lot of different ways. Connor gives us a lot of energy at practice and was a backup point guard a year ago and I look for him to step up, and he also works very hard on the defensive end,” Hodge said.
Platte County has five seniors, which includes Brady Wetzel, Jacob Isaacson and Isaac Dittrick. Some other guys who will look to contribute are juniors Brett Mueller, Archie Wesley and Hayden Schultz.
“What you see in November and December may not be what you see in January and February. We compete every day so people are going to have opportunities in practice, but also JV minutes that they get and could get as far as earning varsity roles so I can see things changing throughout the season more than we’ve done in the past,” Hodge said.