Playoff goals, hard work, tournaments and scrimmages are all important parts of the boys’ basketball team’s start of the season.
The team’s main goal for this year is to make playoffs; they have been preparing by playing in scrimmages. Their first scrimmage was held at Western Beaver on Nov. 30. Though they did not win, they are still keeping their heads up and maintaining a positive attitude.
“We started off rough, but we can turn it around with hard work,” Sophomore Erich Borgman said.
The team will continue using these scrimmages to their benefit.
“[The scrimmages] showed us what skills we have and what areas we still need to work on,” Freshman Zachary Greene said.
The team has maintained its focus on what they are striving towards. Borgman, the team’s point guard, likes to keep the team moving on the floor by running his favorite play, “Celtic.”
“‘Celtic’ is my favorite because it has a lot of movement,” Borgman said.
Dec. 3 marked the end of their scrimmages.
On Dec. 6 and 7, the athletes played in a tipoff tournament at Southside High School, which began their official season.
The first day of the tournament, the boys played against Western Beaver. The team didn’t play as well as they wanted to. According to Senior Matt Feits, “the boys had trouble with getting a good defense going.” The final score was 89-46.
Freshman Avery Sayre hopes the team can improve from this tournament by “playing better on defense, passing the ball and calming their nerves.”
The second day of the tournament, they were up against Southside High School. Although Freedom lost, the game was close. With a final score of 52-44. The boys managed to not give up a certain amount of points to the other team.
“[The team] looked good. We are improving. [The team has] good fundamentals,” Sayre said.
Though Junior Brenton Harrison is new to the team, he already knows the team’s strengths. “I think that we do a better job at executing the plays and knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Harrison said.
According to Harrison, StoRox would have to be the team’s biggest rivalry. Harrison believes this because “[StoRox] understands and knows how to execute their plays better.” Harrison believes that the team needs to improve their attitude going into games. They need to have the confidence that they are going to win.