Junior high basketball players, coaches reflect on season

With the end of junior high basketball, players and coaches reflected on the season and how the teams did this year.

Peter Pfannenstiel, Aaron Seele, Evan Burdiek, Dailin Kruger, and Trenton Smith said their biggest role models were "Mario Chalmers, Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Lon Kruger, and Quin Bruce," respectively.

Pfannenstiel, Kruger, and Seele said their best game was against Rossville, which they won. Burdiek said his best game was against Sabetha, and Smith's was against Carbondale. Coach Warren Bledsoe, who has been coaching for 20 years, was very pleased with his eighth-grade team.

"They go out and have heart when they compete. They played with a lot of energy and worked well as a team."

Pfannenstiel, Kruger, and Smith said their biggest influence who pushed them was Coach Alan Cunningham, who has been coaching for 26 years.

All five players agreed they love basketball.

"The biggest reward for playing basketball would have to be beating every other team," Seele stated.

Their least favorite part was conditioning at the beginning of the year, getting yelled at, and, of course, losing games. The eighth-grade team agreed that they felt that had no weaknesses.

Coach Bledsoe said the eighth graders' strengths were their speed and ability to play at a high intensity level. The seventh-grade players agreed that offense was their weakness, while Coach Cunningham said that their guard play and passes as posts were very good.

"The practices were all right, considering we didn't have a lot of space," Coach Cunningham said. "But it was good having another gym. They played much better and started to get stuff done."

Cunningham said some memorable moments for seventh grade would be when they would all walk over in the snow to the grade school gym, wearing shorts.

As for eighth grade, Burdiek stated one of the most memorable moments was when Codey Albers shot a free throw and it hit the rim and backboard twice, and then went in. Pfannenstiel said that the funniest moment in eighth-grade basketball was when Jeff Torkelson dribbled the basketball off his face and started laughing in a game. But for Seele, the 5'1" eighth-grader, he said the most memorable moment was when he stuffed a player who was six feet tall.

Bledsoe said all the players were pretty solid. He said they all worked hard and worked together. As for the seventh-grade coach, Cunningham said Chayse Saia is a "glue guy."

"He's a good defender and can be trusted with the ball. He keeps the team together."

The seventh- and eighth-grade basketball players experienced a year or two years of junior high basketball. So what is their advice for soon-to-be-seventh-graders?

"Work hard and play to the best of your ability," stated Pfannenstiel.

"Always listen to the coaches," Kruger and Smith said.

As for Bledsoe, he said the plans for the future team is to win the league tournament. Cunningham stated his plan is to take pride in going to the championship game and getting better for high school basketball.

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