Boys’ basketball team swings into season

by Jack Steckel

After a heartbreaking loss in the championship game last year, the Spartans are back and firing on all cylinders for this upcoming season.

Graduating five seniors, “We lost a lot of size, physicality, and leadership from those graduates,” head coach Ryan Wehr said. “That will be difficult to replace.”

However, the court remains deep this season with top scorer senior Max Pristas returning and senior point guard Jonah Shaw back in action from injury. The Spartans are ready to run it back to the championship with returning seniors such as defensive beast Christian Gordon, floor general Quincy Brunner, sharpshooter Robbie Allen, scrappy Corey Trump, and big man Dawson Kauffman.

“The coaching staff hopes that getting a chance to play in those environments helps us. We’re hoping coming up short motivates our players to go further,” Wehr said. “And to make that next step to try and be champions.”

According to Pristas, the team has come together nicely since the summer ended.

“We’ve definitely progressed as a team since summer,” Pristas said. “It was a struggle.”

He credits the team’s progression to the off-season work that they have put in since the school year started.

“Since we’ve started practicing at the beginning of the school year, we’ve come a long way as a team,” Pristas said. “Being able to find out what works and what doesn’t is really beneficial.”

Coach Wehr agreed with Pristas about the team’s progression, and has high hopes for this season.

“We’re hopeful that this year we will be a bit quicker, be able to play faster, and shoot the ball more consistently,” Wehr said. “We want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season and put ourselves in position to play for championships.”

With a quick and agile lineup, coupled with experience as well as high aspirations, this Spartans squad is shaping up to be an ominous threat to the Colonial League.