Young coach hoping to bring excitement, winning ways back to Perry Central boys’ basketball
Perry Central sophomore Skylyn Powe is shown driving the basketball up the court after pulling down a defensive rebound against Greene County in last week’s tournament at PCHS. The Perry Central roster is loaded with young talent that new coach Jordan Torrey hopes will rebuild the PCHS boys’ basketball program into a perennial winner.
Photo by RUSSELL TURNER | Dispatch Editor
By Stan Caldwell
Dispatch Correspondent
Jordan Torrey is the latest coach to take on the task on building a winning boys basketball team at Perry Central High School.
A product of Germantown High, Torrey was a protégé of Bulldog football coach and athletic director Nick Griffin when Griffin was teaching and coaching at Madison Central prior to return to his alma mater as head football coach.
“I’ve got a connection with Coach Griffin,” Torrey said. “He was my mentor, my teacher when I was at Madison Middle School, and I also coached with his wife. So we’ve got a connection there as well, and we know a lot of the same people. It’s a good fit.”
Torrey, 26, played basketball and football at Germantown, he earned his associate’s degree from Hinds Community College, then received his bachelor’s degree from Jackson State.
He coached for two seasons at Ridgeland High, then spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Pascagoula.
Under the tutelage of Lorenzo Wright, the Panthers were 52-7 with Torrey on staff and reached the Class 6A Final Four both seasons – losing both times to Torrey’s former Ridgeland team in the semifinals at Mississippi Coliseum.
“We were pretty good,” Torrey said. “We won two district championships, went to the Final Four both years, had about a half-dozen guys sign at the next level. Before that I was at Ridgeland, and we won a district title there too.”
Torrey said he was attracted to the potential at Perry Central. The school has always had athletes, but stability has been an issue. After some big seasons in the 1990s, the program has had mostly lean years in the 21st century.
The Bulldogs have not made the playoffs in 10 years, whether they’ve been in Class 3A or in Class 2A, as they are this season, and they haven’t won a playoff game in 20 years.
“I really feel like this is a hidden gem,” Torrey said. “I really feel like Perry Central has a lot of potential, just waiting to be tapped.
“I watched the film on them from last year, and I really feel like they had a lot of nice pieces, but they couldn’t quite put it together.”
Torrey inherits a team that was 9-16 last season, 2-8 in Region 8-3A, but he will be building pretty much from scratch. The Bulldogs do not have a senior on their roster, and they lost their top three leading scorers from last season.
“Man, we are super young this year,” Torrey said. “They lost a lot from last year, but we’ve got two or three guys who back played a lot. Most everybody else, it will be their first time getting a lot of varsity minutes.”
But Torrey is high on his one returning starter, junior K’lon Sumrall, a 6-foot-1 forward, plus junior guard Skyler Tatum (5-11), who logged a lot of minutes off the bench last season.
“We expect a lot out of K’lon, he just needs to keep pushing himself every day,” Torrey said. “ “He’s got a lot of potential, from what I saw on film, and from this summer.
“I’ve also got a little ninth-grader, my point guard that I’m excited about, Trell Evans. I think he’s got a chance to be pretty special. He’s about 5-7, he’s pretty quick and he can shoot it a little bit.”
Sumrall averaged 5.1 points and 4.3 rebounds last season, and Tatum went for 4.0 points and 1.6 rebounds.
“We’re young and somewhat inexperienced, but we’ve got to bring the new guys in too, get them in the program and get them some experience,” said Sumrall. “Maybe we can win a district championship, go far in the playoffs, that’s our goal.”
Perry Central will have some length, with five players over 6-feet. Junior Carlos McGilvery (6-1) will be vying for more playing time, along with junior guard Brayden Weathers (5-6), after playing in support roles last season.
The Bulldogs will stress pressure defense, and transition offense, and they have the athletes to play that style.
“The way I prefer to play, getting up and down, fast-paced, pressure the ball, lot of trapping,” Torrey said. “I think we have the players who can play that style.”
Sumrall sees a young, first-time coach as a win for Perry Central, and believes he can build a successful program.
“I like our coach,” Sumrall said. “He comes from a school that’s known for winning, and he’s trying to change it around here into a winning team. He’s bringing character, hard work and dedication to our school. I like it.
“I think we’re a gritty team, and if we can get down on the floor and play pressure defense, the points will come.”
Perry Central will be in a new environment after dropping down to 2A, but there are plenty of familiar foes on the Region 8-2A schedule, old Pine Belt opponents such as North Forrest, East Marion and Collins, with Sacred Heart moving up from Class 1A into the region.
Torrey said he expects East Marion to be a slight favorite coming into the season, after a run to the 1A Final Four last season, but that it is really pretty wide open.
“If all the pieces go right, and we buy in – from the players, the parents, admin, my teachers – if we get the support, we can go as far as we want to go,” Torrey added. “But we are so young that this is going to be a building and a growing year, setting the foundation, changing the culture. We still want to go to the playoffs and we want to win at least one game in the playoffs.”
PCHS opened its season in the annual Perry Central Invitational Tournament with losses to George County and Greene County, but Torrey hopes the experience will be something his team can build on when they take on Salem this Thursday.
