ALAH Knights ready for full season
The Knights’ #23 Payton Rawlins battles for a rebound in the second half of their game against Sullivan. #24 Max Duzan and #3 Maddix Stirrett are also in on the play for ALAH. The Jr. Varsity dropped their game 41-27 to Sullivan.
The Knights’ Claire Seal pulls down a rebound in the girls’ Varsity home game vs. the Salt Fork Storm last Tuesday. Also ready for action are #2 Charley Condill, across from Charley is Kailee Otto and Shaylie Miller. Claire led the way for ALAH with 25 points, 19 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.
By Blake Faith
Staff Writer
The Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond boys basketball team is super excited for its upcoming season. The team is ready for a full season and the chance at postseason.
Head coach Brad McGilll says his team is super excited and felt that his team was solid last season, but his team didn’t get to fulfill their potential in the postseason.
In the off-season there was a little bit of tweaking with the sets, but not much since the system has remained the same throughout the past few years. Some of the younger players are learning the plays in that system that they might not have seen or been taught at the junior high level.
This year, the Knights return junior starter Kaden Feagin, seniors Quentin Day, Reggie Edmonds and Trey Wardrip.
“We were so fortunate last year that we went 10-deep, and it was a competitive, just get accurate, every single practice,” Coach McGill said. “And there was no drop off from our first five to, you know, our six, seven, eight and nine guys and they’ve just kind of stepped right in and taken over. And this is their fourth year with me. So it’s not like they haven’t, they don’t know the drill, they’ve been through it before. And they’re good leaders.”
This year the Knights moved from 1A to 2A. Coach McGill is expecting them to be one of the smaller 2A schools and there will be games played in the St. Theresa Tournament and non-concerned games against Monticello, Meridian and LeRoy.
“We don’t know what our season will look like and we feel that we’re pretty good,” Coach McGill said. “We feel like we can compete with anybody we play. We’re just hoping that this early part of the season, maybe it’s going to be a little rougher than what had been in the past. But it’s going to prepare us not only for the conference season, and then for the postseason run, because we’re going to be seeing larger, you know, two way schools going in late January and February. So we want to be prepared for that.”
Coach McGill said that the overall message he wanted to send to readers and the community is that they’re going to be a fun team to watch.
“They’re very, very aggressive. They’re very athletic, and they have a fun time playing together,” Coach McGill said. “That’s the one thing that I’ve really been pleased with with our program is that we’ve got a lot of kids that just want to compete. And last year, and then even this year, some of our best efforts have been against the Other in practice, it’s been some really fun things to watch. And they’re a likable group of kids and they’re very appreciative of the fact that they get to do this after last year and they get a full season, however that looks and they’ve got a little basketball talent too, so that doesn’t hurt. They’re good players, good shooters, good kids. And that’s a good thing for the coach and it’s really good for fans.”
