Coach Jeremy Soria is trying to change the culture at South Mountain High School.

As the families of graduated students continue to leave the school year after year, and current students in the area choose to be a part of other programs, Soria has found himself in the difficult position of leading a tumultuous high school basketball team.

“There’s a negative perception of South right now, and we’re trying to figure out why,” he said. “If the kids stayed in our area, somebody from this area would be winning a championship pretty much every year. A lot of these schools that are winning championships or making deep runs are doing it with South kids.”

Enter freshman point guard Isaiah Freeney.

Freeney made his decision to come to South Mountain earlier this spring, bringing his offensive talents and invaluable leadership skills with him.

“Playing under Coach J and Coach Gabe was something that I really wanted to do,” he said. “With [senior forward Jordan Covington] as my leader, we’re going to get things done around here.”

South Mountain’s “magnet” program was what swayed Freeney and his family into making their final decision to join the Jaguars. The magnet is essentially a college preparatory program to help get students on the right track early on to better prepare them for what lies ahead when they graduate.

The idea is for students to start taking the kinds of classes while they’re in high school to prepare them for what they ultimately want to do with their lives after college.

“He wants to be a law student, National Honor Society kid,” Soria said. “When [his parents] saw that law magnet and talked to those teachers, they fell in love with the campus and it was just automatic.”

As for his on-the-court skills, Soria is impressed with how well he performs offensively, but admits his defense will need to be worked on.

“He brings a lot offensively. He understands the game. He has a great mind for the game for his age,” Soria said. “He could be one of our leading scorers as a freshman. Defensively is where he’s going to tend to struggle a little bit because of the speed and physicality of the game at the varsity level.”

The hope is that Freeney can help bring a winning culture back to South Mountain after a true rebuilding year last season.

“We have more of a young leader,” Covington said. “He knows how to play the point guard position very well at a young age, distributes the ball very well, scores very well. He’s the whole package at a young age.”

The current players are confident that Freeney will be a key piece in steering the Jaguars back in the right direction both on and off the court in an effort to help stabilize the rocky reputation that currently surrounds the program.

“I feel the direction is going pretty good,” Covington added. “When people realize how good he plays, I feel people are going to want to come to play with him.”

Freeney isn’t daunted by the prospect of being someone that others look up to right away.

“I can bring young leadership, help my guys around me,” he said. “When I came here they didn’t have much team chemistry, I feel like I can help that, and if we can just play defense better, we’ll be good.”