By KYLE EDEN
Sheridan High School Student
Editor’s Note: The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
The Sheridan Blackhawk boys varsity team went 8-14 this season. With hard work and dedication over the offseason, next year’s returning players will improve. The Varsity team had seven seniors, five of whom started. This means that there are positions to fill and work to be done before next season.
The seniors who are leaving next season are Nick Burnell, Drake Delph, Jesse Kolb, Caleb Duke, Walker Casler, Stevie Smith and Devin Mitchum. Nick and Jesse were both team leaders for rebounding and scoring inside the paint. Drake and Caleb were the two guards that set up the offense and helped score most of our points. Walker was one of our best spot up shooters.
Next year the returning underclassmen have big shoes to fill and have the ability to fill those shoes with hard work. There were several close games this season. The team competed against their opponents in all games but came short in a few. We can learn from these close losses and better execute at the end of games next season.
One of my most memorable games was against Fountain Central. We won that game 53-48 in overtime. I hit two three-pointers in that game, one being in overtime. Fountain Central was a good team and it was a good team win. This game sparked our winning streak that went on for five games. Our team’s best all-around game was against Taylor. We won the game 70-51 and our team ran Taylor out of the gym in the first half. It was a great team win and it got our guys fired up to win more games.
Our team will be losing our taller players next season, and we will need to learn from our practices and games over the summer. We need to continue to work hard to guard the post and get rebounds against next year’s competition. To get ready for next season and to make up for the height that we will be losing, we all need to work hard in the weight room to get stronger. Nick Roberts, Nolan Buckner and myself will be the returning Varsity players, so we will need players who played on the JV team to step up and work hard to fill the remaining spots. We also need to practice our ball handling skills as well as shooting skills all summer to be able to compete against the competition that we will be playing next season.
This season has been fun and a good learning experience for my first Varsity season. We put a ton of work in this season and will continue to get better in the following years. Our team is losing all of our starters and so the remaining three Varsity players left, as well as the JV players, will need to step up and work hard in the off season. The JV players will understand that they need to step up because there are a bunch of spots to be filled and we all know what needs to be fixed. If we put in the time in the weight room and practices working on our ball skills and shooting, then we will be able to compete with every team on our schedule next season.