The boy’s basketball team has already improved their record from last year but is still striving to improve further. They are currently 7-10 overall and 1-5 in the conference. This is a big step forward in Coach Matt Lange’s second year as a head coach. One of his goals at the beginning of the year was to get to the ten-win range, and his team is approaching that with seven games left on the schedule.

While there are several goals for the rest of the season according to coaches and players, Lange says the most important of these goals is self-improvement.

“The goal for the rest of the season is to improve as a team and as individuals,” Lange said. “The perfect season is when all of these areas peak at sectional time.”

He wants to have all cylinders firing at sectional time to hopefully make a deep run in the tournament. Senior guard Aryan Patel agrees with what his coach is saying. Patel, however, is more focused on winning.

“The goal over the last stretch of the season is to simply win as many games as possible and to start playing our best basketball ahead of sectionals so that we can go into sectionals with confidence and momentum,” Patel said.

Both the players and coaches have their priorities straight, and the mindset is clear on what the team is trying to accomplish this year.

With the team wanting to reach a ten-win season they still need another three wins. The schedule does not get any easier as the season is coming to an end. There are still multiple NCC teams left on the schedule along with some tough non-conference teams. Coach Lange of course has concerns about his team prevailing in these games.

“Looking forward, we have a few NCC teams left on the schedule that are very good,” Patel said. “Anderson and Richmond both have very good records and are ranked in 4A, so they will be tough matchups for us. What is extremely tough about those two games is that we play them on back-to-back nights.”

When the team was asked about their driving goal for sectionals, there was one consensus answer. That answer was to win. The team wants to make as deep of a run as possible this year after the first-round exit last year. This mentality starts at the top with coach Matt Lange. It runs down to the end of the bench and even the junior varsity team and the freshman team. All this team wants to do in the tournament is win.