The boys basketball season is up and running as the Owls have already played five games and have a record of 3-2. Their two wins came against Wellington and Rose Hill, and their losses were to Wichita Trinity and Hesston. As the boys get ready to play two more games before break, let’s take a look into the last couple of games they’ve played.
One of Garden Plain’s losses came to a good Hesston team where they lost 26-49. Offensively, Garden Plain couldn’t buy a bucket and their leading scorer was Cooper Eck who had 14 out of their 26 points. The boys were very upset with their performance, putting up only 26 points. The team also had a combined 16 turnovers which is unacceptable.
Garden Plain is also facing some early injuries coming into this season as freshman power forward, Jaxx Dreiling, who made his return this week in the game against Southeast of Saline where the Owls won 32-30. Dreiling is a key part to this team as he is the next post player after Jared Flax.
Being limited on substitutions has been a crucial part to this team early on as they are currently only playing with about seven people. Another key player that is currently injured is Brant Long. Long is dealing with an ankle injury that he suffered against Hesston after blocking a shot and landing on it wrong. Long is a junior and key player for the Garden Plain offense and defense. Offensively, he is very good at driving to the basket and elevating high to finish in the paint. Defensively, he is valued for his quickness and athletic ability to be able to guard inside and outside of the paint. Hopefully Long can have a speedy recovery so the team can make this season better than what it has started.
Lastly, another key player the team is missing is senior guard Elijah Durham. Durham was out with a fractured shin, but returned in limited action on Tuesday against Southeast of Saline. Durham spoke about what he is most excited for as he makes his return, “I’m most excited to have fun this season with my teammates and I’m hoping to try and help my team during some games this year.”
Garden Plain faces league rival Cheney on Friday. Winning against Cheney would be crucial for Garden Plain as they are looking to have a winning record going into Winter break. The boys are looking forward to this week’s game against the Cheney Cardinals. The main reason behind this is because of the Garden Plain and Cheney league rivalry. Not only has this been going on for quite some time but Garden Plain hasn’t beat Cheney in basketball for about 10 years. Winning this game against Cheney wouldn’t just mean a lot to the boys, but it would also mean a lot to the community as they’ve been watching loss after loss to Cheney and hoping for a win.
Coach Mark Powell talked about what he’s expecting out of his players coming into this week and he said, “We’ve had some strong leadership and play from our three returning players with varsity experience (Eli, Cooper, Brant). There have been times through the first four games where our youth and inexperience have shown, but they’ve also had some bright spots and we are excited for the team’s potential as we keep striving towards being the best team we can be by the time March comes around. We are playing two really good teams this week and we are going to need to handle ball pressure and we need to get to the free throw line more often. We are hoping to end the first part of the season with a strong finish.”
The Cheney Cardinals are led by their three star power forward Quaid Thomas. Quaid Thomas is a junior at Cheney and throughout the last couple of years he has shown us that he is a very good player. Captain Eli Eck spoke about what things the team needs to do against Cheney to help secure the win, “We really need to handle pressure against Cheney as they will most likely put a lot of ball pressure on us. We also are going to need to step up defensively as Cheney is a very good offensive team so defense is going to be a key detail to help us secure the win. Lastly, one thing we really need to do is not have simple mistakes like turnovers and not playing help defense. If we do this I think we have a good shot at beating them.” Garden Plain faces Cheney at home on Friday, December 19.
Even though the boys are missing some key players right now, that doesn’t mean that the season is over. They are looking forward to the rest of this season and are hopeful that this team suffers no more injuries. If they keep working hard and improving their fundamentals there will be nothing that can stop them from victory.
