The McPherson Middle School 7th and 8th Grade Boys began their basketball season on Tuesday, as they took on Salina Lakewood.
In the 8th Grade A-Team Game, the Pups would defeat Salina Lakewood 33-24.
Head Coach Tyler Brown said, “It was nice to be able to go on the road and open the season with a win. We held Lakewood to just 24 points and it was a pregame goal to keep them at 35 points or below. Meeting a goal like that usually ends up in a “w” at the middle school level. But if you look at our score column they held us to just 33 points as well which would have met the same goal.
Coach Brown added, “Cole and Ashton were big for us in the scoring column scoring 75% of our points. Even though I’m sure those two will lead us most nights, we need a few more guys to step up and be a little more aggressive as well. But the team is learning two new offenses for the first time this year, so the flow of offensive things were a little off at times and we were slow to get into our sets.” Brown concluded by saying, “I think once they master the movement of the two offenses this team can have a special season. They just need to trust the system and trust each other and make the correct basketball play.”
The 8th Grade Boys will head to Derby on Thursday, as they look to avenge a loss that Derby gave this team last year.
Scoring Summary:
Cole Cooper 15
Ashton Malm 10
Cru Buchman 3
Matt Burger 2
Jonas Emery 2
Carter Bengston 1
The B Team was also able to open the season 1-0, holding on for a 1-point win, 22-21.
Coach David Goerzen said, “Even though our guys are still working to fully understand and execute our playbook, they did a great job giving full effort and working hard tonight. The game remained close all 4 quarters. We eventually found ourselves on the free throw line with 0.1 seconds left on the clock. Luckily, Jeyvonte Body sealed the win by draining the second of his two free throws.” Goerzen concluded by saying, “We will see if we can keep the momentum rolling against Derby Thursday night.”
Scoring Summary:
Ben Bocox 6
Dane Becker 5
Will Domiingo 4
Nolan Pearcy 2
Finn Bauer 2
Adrian Unruh 2
Jeyvonte Body 1
The 7th Graders would suffer two tough losses on Tuesday, the A-Team falling 29-25, and the B-Team falling 34-28. Head Coach Jay Crawford said, “You could tell this was our first game, we came out pretty tight on offense but our defense kept us in the game. We will get back to practice and work on things on the offensive side of the ball.
Scoring Summary:
Tripp Pelzel 13
Tre Winburn 10
Jensen Razak 2
Crawford said, “The B-Team played well, they competed well and made some good plays for each other. They had 6 guys score and that was great to see.”
Scoring Summary:
Gavin Heider 7
Brody Milleson 7
Isaac Nelson 4
Colt Chapman 4
Lawson Ediger 3
Logan Starts 3
