Alcovy High School has hired Justin Hunter as the new coach of the girls’ basketball team. For Hunter, the job was fate.

While scrolling through Newton County’s school system website, he saw the job posting at Alcovy for two of his current positions.

“It was kind of a two birds with one stone situation,” Hunter said. “I saw that there was a position available to coach the girls’ varsity program at Alcovy, and they also had a position available for the subject that I teach on the middle school level, which was business education.

“It was a great opportunity for me to get a chance and experience one of my lifelong goals of coaching at the high school level,” he said.

Hunter has worked as a business and computer science teacher at Liberty Middle School, as well as the head boys basketball coach. Under Hunter, the Liberty Knights were the 2015-2016 NewRock Champions, with eighth grader Jerrol Hines being named Athlete of the Year in Georgia. When he received news that he got the job at Alcovy, Hunter compared the feeling to being in high school and finding out you made the sports team.

Though he will be making the switch to the high school level, Hunter believes there will not be much of a change. Instead, he says the philosophies for coaching middle and high school are the same.

“You’re getting a group of children to come together as a team,” Hunter said. “You’re taking a whole bunch of individuals and you’re getting them to try to maximize working together collectively to reach one goal, which is to play and execute as best as you can while trying to accomplish a team goal. It’s all the same.

“I’m just glad to be part of a program that has a great reputation and to help it continue to excel,” he said.

The Alcovy girls basketball team finished the 2015-2016 season with a 13-10 overall record and 3-7 in Region 2-AAAAAA. The Tigers’ star player and leading scorer Tierra Hodges, who led the region in points and rebounds per game, will be moving on to play collegiate basketball at Furman in the fall.

Without Hodges, the Tigers will be challenged to stay afloat in the region this season. But that is a challenge that Hunter is willing to take on.

“My plans are to get these girls to work well with each other, to definitely have 100 percent of effort there every night or game,” Hunter said. “In the ultimate end, the execution is what we’ll be working towards. If we have effort in execution, then it helps us meet our major objective, which is to be an effective team working together.”