The story of Chilton Christian Academy’s season has been a group of former understudies learning how to perform in leading roles.

After four players were lost from last year’s state tournament team, this year’s Patriots (9-10, 4-2 area) had to find their own way.

“We struggled early this season,” coach Chris Jones said. “It’s taken us all year to recognize our identity.

It’s good that CCA has finally found that identity because Calvary (Montgomery) visits at 6:30 tonight for a sub-state playoff game. The teams split two regular season meetings.

The group that has grown into the team’s nucleus includes junior Zac Pierce, who is the team’s leading scorer with about 20 points a game, senior Will Clark, who is versatile enough to regularly post double-doubles in points and rebounds, and sophomore Zach Brown.

“There’s no more coattailing. They’re the leaders that everyone looks up to now.”

Brown’s improvement has been particularly important, Jones said, because he runs the point for a team short on guards.

“We need to control the tempo—run it when we want to run it and slow it down when we need to,” Jones said of Brown’s task tonight. He has a much broader understanding of the game and how we want to run the system.”