Sport: Boys Basketball
Head coach: Don Kreienkamp
Last season placement: the team had a final record of 11-17 and they ended the season with a 41-61 loss to Eureka in the MSHSAA Class 6 District 2 semifinal game.
What are your goals for the team? “In terms of the season, my expectation is always to compete for a district title. I have had the current juniors for three years and I think we have a high level of capability and so winning a district title would be the goal. More importantly, we’re trying to learn to work hard every single day with maximum effort at practice instead of just focusing on end goals,” Kreienkamp said.
Players to watch this season: Coach Kreienkamp mentioned senior Josh Pitney and juniors Brady Micek, Drew Pickering and Nolan Savoie as players that will stand out.
What will you focus on this season? “Some of the things we’re gonna look at is trying to limit our turnovers. When doing an evaluation before taking over a team, looking at strengths and weaknesses, we want to continue to improve on our turnover margin. We’re not particularly tall, but we wanna make sure that we win the rebounding margin every game as well. Creating more rebounds and less turnovers should create more opportunities for better scoring,” Kreienkamp said.
Nolan Savoie
Background: Savoie played on the team last year as a sophomore and he also plays football. Savoie, along with other football players have missed the first couple weeks of practice for basketball due to the football team’s playoff run that ended Nov. 29.
Goals for this season: Savoie hopes to be a District champion and beat Marquette and Eureka. He will focus on limiting turnovers and holding opposing teams under a certain number of points each game.
As a football player who missed the first practices, do you feel prepared for the season? “It feels like I’m a little late joining the team but hopefully the football players can get into rhythm with everyone else this week during practice, but even after two days of practice [the team chemistry] is starting to get to where it needs to be and is definitely moving in the right direction,” Savoie said.
