Storm Basketball Tips off a Bright New Year

When students leave for break, many of them enjoy time off and a few weeks of sleeping until noon. All except the Basketball Boys. All through break, STORM Basketball hit the court to work on their game, and their hard work has not gone unnoticed. (Also, did you guys see the new lights in the gym?)

On January 8, STORM Basketball took on Mt. Pulaski at home. Although the final buzzer signaled the end of the game, another loss for us, the players were more upbeat than usual as they have been reflecting on their progress throughout the year. We got a chance to talk to Coach Viele to get some of his words on the JV game. 

​"We lost, but I felt that we should have done a little better because we had played them the night before and did way better. These back to back games are taking their toll on our boys, but they keep fighting." 

It's tough to watch a losing season. It's even tougher to get up every day and practice knowing that it's a losing season. But, losing has made some of our players better. Our season has given  us the drive and motivation to get better. We have been hitting the weight room to gain a little weight to help us with defense and we have been hard at work trying to improve our communication when we make drives down the lane. 

People have to remember that we have a really young team with no seniors on the team and a team composed mostly of freshmen and sophomores. Regardless of the way the games go, it's always nice to see the stands packed with friends and parents coming on out to support our boys. 

We caught up with Stanley Smith, sophomore on the varsity team, to talk about his performance and the team's progress through the season. 
“It has been a rough season and there has been a lot of games we could have won.” "We start off strong and we finish strong, but the middle seems to be where we lag behind. It's a work in progress, but we keep looking towards the future as we can see ourselves getting better." 

One of the major areas of improvement that is evidence when watching a game is chemistry when making a break away. Too many times, especially in the middle of the game, our ball movement was thwarted by the opposing team or we just threw the ball way beyond someone. It takes time to get the ball moving and sometimes it's hard to anticipate a teammates moves, but it's tough to watch a break away down the court only to throw the ball away out of bounds because someone broke right when the other player thought it was going to break left. 

We caught up with Coach Myers, varsity coach, to ask him for his thoughts on the season. He reported that "we've gotten a lot better on defense and offense. Unfortunately, it does not show up on wins and losses, but I am seeing these boys get more focused and locked in to make those plays. We have a lot of miscommunication on break aways, but I also see our leaders in the team stepping up to try and fix those in a positive way, so we should start seeing more wins in the next couple of years." 

All in all, we are looking forward to wrapping up the last few games by celebrating our progress this year and our continued efforts moving forward. Just like Coach Myers says, "I look forward to February because it is by then that you will see us playing our best game." 

Don't forget to catch Senior Night for the boys on Tuesday, February 12, 2019 here at home. 

Story by Madison Goodwin and Kaden Emerson