With conditioning beginning before summer even had the boys’ basketball team has been preparing for the upcoming season.

“Over the summer we would practice at West Shore and play against other high-school teams in tournaments and summer leagues,” Kyle Peters (11)  said. “Presently, we’ve been focusing more on running and lifting weights to help us get in shape before the season.”

Coach Wardell Collins echoed Peters remarks.

“The goals of the current conditioning is to help players become stronger and be in better shape before the season starts,” Collins said.

Aside from improving the individual players, preseason practices are designed to work on the team as a whole.

“I think conditioning has helped the team bond and learn to work together as a unit,” Peters said.

Collins also addressed changes to his coaching staff during the summer.

“The process of hiring a JV coach is going through applicants, choosing who to interview, going through the interview process, then selecting the candidate I feel would be best for the program,” Collins said. “After that they would have to interview with our athletic director [Tony] Riopelle and our principal [Rick] Fleming.”

Collins says he believes this change will be good for the JV team.

“It can affect the JV team by giving them the right experience in our basketball program to learn how to play the game the right way, learn team work, have fun, compete, and  [allow them to be] prepared to be a varsity player,” Collins said.

The players also have higher expectations.

“This season I expect the team to have a significantly better record than previous seasons,” Peters said. “This year I think the team will [achieve] a winning record.”

By Liam Schutte