Things got off to a rocky start for Heritage early on in the season. The Patriots boys basketball team lost their first two games, one of which was a region game. But now the team is on a four-game winning streak at 4-2 overall and 3-1 in Region 8-AAAAA.

The Patriots' season opener against Newton resulted in a 51-41 loss. A loss that Vernon Denmark, Heritage head coach, says allowed Heritage to take a look in the mirror and fix themselves.

"We're steadily improving," Denmark said. "The Newton game was good for us because it showed us a lot of our deficiencies that we went back and we tried to work and did a lot of things better, especially on the defensive end. I feel like the first six games we played, thus far we've played some pretty good defense. We just got to get our offense going a little better."

The Patriots could easily be 5-1 and on top of the region if it wasn't for their 62-59 loss to Gainesville (8-0, 3-0 region). However, Denmark is still content with the team's start.

"It's a combination of things," Denmark said when asked what area he'd give credit to for the team's recent streak. "We definitely play well together as a team. Being able to bring back eight of our top 10 guys from last year's team helped out a lot. We've got a lot of team chemistry. But at the same time, defense is definitely carrying us in games at this point in the season. I think only one time this season we've cracked 60 points (twice actually) and it's one of our goals to at least get 60 points in a game. But at the same time the fact that we're 4-2 overall shows that we've been holding other teams under 60 points. Defensively we've been doing a pretty decent job thus far."

Decent is probably an understatement. The Patriots held Butler (7-1, 1-0 Region 3-AAA) to its lowest points total of the season in a thrilling 59-58 victory. That same defense held strong against Lanier by making stops in crunch time as Heritage escaped with a 63-62 win.

"Everything is a learning experience. I think that having those close games is going to help us even more so than if we would have won by larger margins of victory. Now we're going to understand in the future that we can play in close games, that we can execute in the and and pull of a victory in a close game when we need to," Denmark said.

"In the Butler game they actually had the lead with about 20 seconds left or maybe a little bit less and we were able to execute at the end and get a bucket to go back up by one on them," he added. "In the Lanier game we had to get a couple of stops at the end, so we've kind of shown that we can finish a game offensively or defensively. I'm pleased about the fact that we were able to pull those wins off, but hopefully we'll be able to learn from those situations and be more prepared to handle games like that down the stretch."

Denmark says offensive growth is the team's focus right now. At a Thursday practice the team ram through a number of plays on offense - halfcourt sets and inbounds plays. Jordan Thomas, a 6-foot-1 sophomore and the team's leading scorer at 12.2 points per game, has been playing really well offensively as of late. Thomas has scored 14, 22 and 18 points in his last three games.

"Right now offensively I think our most consistent scorer has been Jordan Thomas," Denmark said. "He's kind of getting his groove going offensively."

Thomas isn't doing it alone, Isaiah Banks and Makyle Wilkerson have been key contributors as well.

"Isaiah Banks has been very consistent for us offensively and rebounding the basketball. Isaiah is very athletic so he's that type of kid, who can have a breakout game at any given time," Denmark said fondly.

"Makyle Wilkerson, our junior center, who controls the boards for us. One thing that I'm really pleased with out of Makyle is that he doesn't mind taking charges. I think right now he's averaging about three charges a game. With us not being very big, not having a lot of shot blocking - him taking those charges allows us the opportunity to still be able to get shots on the defensive end," Denmark added.

Despite currently being third in the region and two games above .500, Denmark says his team can still improve.

"We want to get better at making sure we pay attention to the details - the small things. Making sure that we minimise our turnovers and things like that, making sure that we box out and rebound the basketball well. All those things," Denmark said. "In all of our games so far we really haven't dominated any team that we've played. A part of that is we're not doing the small things right now. I think that if we get back to a lot of the basics, get back to a lot of our fundamentals we'll be able to be a little bit more successful. Even in our victories, we can have more decisive victories."