Puxico hoops not shying from challenges beginning tonight

Puxico High School boy's basketball coach Bryant Fernetti speaks to his team last season during a game at Bernie High School.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

Fourth-year Puxico High School boys basketball coach Bryant Fernetti, who also serves as the school’s athletic director, has no one to blame but himself when he takes a glance at the Indians’ non-conference schedules this winter.

Puxico will face daunting task after daunting task over the next six weeks in preparation of winning varying titles in January, February, and hopefully, March, and those tests begin tonight at the Jackson Jamboree.

“We’ve played a lot of bigger schools,” Fernetti said of his team’s offseason in preparation for this season. “A lot of good schools.

“I don’t care whether we win or lose, but those are the types of teams that we need to play to get where we want to.”

Where Fernetti (and the Puxico fan base) wants to go is the MSHSAA Class 2 Final Four.

The Indians fell just short of that goal last spring when South Pemiscot beat them on a last-second shot in the Quarterfinals, but Fernetti is going to try and toughen his team up over the next few months so that they are ready for all comers in the postseason.

Puxico will face Greenville tonight at Jackson at 6 p.m., followed by a matchup with Jackson at 7 p.m.

The host Indians will then battle the Bears at 8 p.m.

The Bears have won 57 games over the past three seasons while Jackson is a Class 6 program that has won 40 games over the past two seasons and advanced to the 2023 Final Four.

Tonight’s games will be the last in which Fernetti doesn’t care about the scoreboard, because the real tests get underway on November 30 in a massive way.

Puxico opens its regular season at the Current River Challenge at Van Buren High School on that day at 4 p.m. against defending Class 1 state champion Chadwick.

The Cardinals won 29 of their 32 games a year ago and have strung together four consecutive seasons of 20-plus victories.

The tests continue on Dec. 12 when Puxico travels to Neelyville, which won 16 games last year, and on Dec. 21, the Indians will host Thayer, which won 23 games last season and has advanced to three consecutive Class 3 State Finals.

“We’ve tried to add some games like that,” Fernetti said.

All of that will help prepare Puxico for the always challenging games within the annual Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, the Stoddard County Athletic Association schedule and tournament, as well as the Ozark Foothills games.

“Our conferences are going to be good,” Fernetti said. “Stoddard County (teams) are going to be good. We’re also in the OFC, where there are good teams.

“Then you have the Christmas Tournament, where there are a lot of good teams.”

Puxico returns five seniors in Mason Parsley, Jerrett Powell, Kaysen Long, Gregory Zimmerman, and Carson Ward.

Fernetti also has talented junior guards Landan Burchard and Jett Hancock returning.

“We’ll definitely be challenged,” Fernetti said.