This is a remake of an article that was erased due to an outage earlier this week.

Portsmouth Junior High/Elementary tournament on June 5th:

PJHS went 3-0, beating Ironton, West Union, and Notre Dame. 5th and 6th grade teams won, beating Clay. The 2nd week of play will be on June 12th, starting at 10:00.

Varsity Summer Schedule:

June 8th: At Northwest: Portsmouth scrimmaged Northwest and Piketon, quarter scores were not kept, and there were no officials. The Trojans had a total of about 15 players, about 6 were freshmen and sophomores.

Note: This is a remake of a previous article that was erased due to an outage earlier this week.

What about the 2021-2022 Portsmouth Trojans? Can they score enough to win more games? Can they move up in the OVC standings? Can they rebound enough given their undersized roster? Can they post their first winning season since 2018? Can they advance out of the sectional for the first time since 2017?

Here is the anticipated roster for 2021-22 which obviously could change somewhat: (Class is listed as to what they will be) Edited on 3/5/21 to include several on anticipated roster.

Portsmouth joined the Ohio Valley Conference in the 2014-2015 season. Here is the Trojans' finish each of those years:

2015: 1st
2016: 2nd (Fairland champion)
2017: 3rd (Fairland champion)
2018: 4th (Fairland champion)
2019: 7th (Fairland champion)
2020: 5th (Fairland champion)
2021: 6th (tied) (Fairland champion)
2022: 6th (Fairland champion)

After Portsmouth's 85-47 loss to Fairland in the sectional championship, here a few facts and figures from the 2020-21 season:

Freshmen guards 6-1 Devin Lattimore and 5-9 DeAndre Berry have added some much needed scoring punch to the varsity Trojans offense, and in a couple of games, their scoring contributions made the difference in the game. Listed below are the games in which Lattimore and Berry scored:

The Portsmouth Trojans' 7th and 8th grade boys teams both advanced in the first round of the OVC tournament. The 7th grade boys defeated Fairland 40-39, while the 8th grade boys bested Coal Grove 51-18. Both teams advance to play on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at Coal Grove HS in the conference semifinals. The OVC 7th and 8th grade championship games are scheduled to be played at Portsmouth HS, date TBD.

Adding on to the topic "Portsmouth's Offensive Woes", I went back on tabulated the number of wins and losses by the Trojans when scoring less than 50 pts. Included in the data are the 2011/2012 state tournament teams, and teams from 2015 to the present time:

Info below updated 2/27/21:

Number of games total scoring under 50 pts.: 48
Number of games won when scoring under 50 pts.: 9
Number of games lost when scoring under 50 pts.: 39
Number of games scoring in the 30's: 13
Number of games won scoring in the 30's: 0

Portsmouth's 60-41 loss to Fairland on 2/13/21 was the 9th time this season that the Trojans scored less than 50 points. The Trojans are 0-9 in those games. I went back and looked at preceding years to see if this was becoming a trend corresponding to the team's record for the year.

State Tournament Teams 2011 and 2012:

2011: Overall scoring avg. 60.46 PPG; 4 games in the 40's; 1 game in the 30s; Overall Record: 21-5
2012: Overall scoring avg. 61.88 PPG; 2 games in the 40's 1 in the 30's; Overall Record: 24-3

Since 2015:

Here is the varsity basketball roster for the 2020-2021 Portsmouth Trojans:

Miles Shipp..............6-2 SR*.......leading scorer returning 10 PPG; career high 27 vs.Ironton
Chris Duff................6-0 SR
Dariyonne Bryant....6-3 JR*
Drew Roe................5-8 JR*
Amare Johnson.......5-8 JR*
Donovan Carr..........6-0 JR*
Michael Duncan......6-1 SR
Reid Pendleton.......5-9 SO
Tyler Duncan..........5-10 SO
Daewan Spence......6-1 JR
Dante Hamrick........5-10 SR