The Putnam County boys basketball team has been facing tough times lately.
Injuries have hit the War Eagles hard, with several players missing games early in the new year, resulting in key losses. Entering this week, they’re 3-3 since 2026 began with a 13-6 overall record.
Putnam lost to Jones County in a close game on Jan. 3 before dominating region opponents Towers and McNair. The War Eagles, then ranked No. 1, were next dominated by then-No. 2 Commerce after collapsing in the second half. They then defeated Southwest Atlanta Christian before losing to Greenforest by double digits.
Putnam has been playing inconsistently in the second half of the season, but head coach Patrick Marshall doesn’t want to blame injuries or missing players. Marshall said he just hopes the team can recover quickly as the regular season nears its end.
“No, I don’t think we’re peaking at the right time,” Marshall said earlier this week. “Jeremy (Banks) just got injured, and he will miss today’s game (Monday) and tomorrow’s game. He won’t be back until Friday. We’ve got some people coming back, and we’re trying to find our groove again. Hopefully, by the middle of next week or by next Friday when we play Jasper County, that’s when I think we’ll get our groove back. This week, we’ve got three games, so it’s going to be where we can go with it.”
Marshall also pointed out that the team has only had two days of practice in the past couple of weeks.
“So, we’re going to try to get our groove back this week, you know what I’m saying? Because we have so many missing people,” Marshall said. “Like, we’ve been missing Zay (Hargrove). Zay hasn’t played the last two games. So, the injury bug has hit us hard right now. I’m trying to get everybody back, and then we’ll be fully healthy by the time we get into that last week of the regular season.”
Last week against Southwest Atlanta Christian, Marshall did see the team take a step in the right direction, though. The War Eagles played a full game from start to finish, but he felt like his players competed better in the second half.
Putnam led the Warriors 32-24 at halftime, but an offensive explosion and sustained defensive intensity in the second half led to an 83-56 win. The War Eagles had three scorers in double figures in the lopsided victory.
“It was big, getting back home and playing in front of a home crowd,” Marshall said. “We played pretty good defense all around and scored consistently. We looked like ourselves a little bit, so that was a big win for us.”
However, Putnam faced Greenforest last Friday, and it turned into a complete 180. After trailing 33-28 at the half, the War Eagles suffered another second-half implosion on each end of the floor, leading to a 69-52 loss.
“I thought we went in with a great game plan. That’s been a story of the season so far, man,” Marshall said. “We get early leads, then we just can’t hold them, and we start playing out of character and doing stuff that’s not conducive to winning.
And that’s what happened in that game. We went into the second quarter, got outscored by 10, were only down five at halftime, and then came out in the third quarter and scored only seven points.
“Man, you can’t do that against teams of that caliber. We’ve got to find a way to come out of halftime with the same energy, and we’ve got to find a way to hold onto leads when we get them. That’s a work in progress, but hopefully we’ll get this stuff sorted out before the region playoffs begin.”
Putnam faced Hephzibah and W.D. Mohammed earlier this week before playing the Utopian Academy of the Arts on Friday. The War Eagles have three more regular-season games in 2025-26 against Lamar County, Jasper County, and Social Circle before the region tournament begins during the second week of February.