The boy’s varsity basketball team started its season earlier this month and is on its way to getting a consistent win streak going, despite some initial problems. Although last year was not the Sea Kings’ brightest years in basketball, this group of boys is looking to shake things up this year.

Because the Kings lost a majority of  players to the graduating class of 2012, key leaders are lacking. Simply put, we also lots some valuable assets as far as great players. One of these players is Matt Costa, who was a rebounding machine. Another lost veteran is Sammy Kalejaye, who really knew how to handle the ball. Although the team is lacking those players this year, the new group of players believes that their shooting abilities are better this season than last season.

This year the varsity team has been working hard to hone in on their skills, and hopes to achieve a better record this year than last year, when the team was put to shame, going 0-10 in the Bay League.

To improve, the team has started weekday morning practice and has participated in a few tournaments to sync their play as a team and figure out their game plan. Some players have even tried harder by filling in their free time with extra practice.

Sea King basketball players say they are athletic, but not as much as other teams like Leuzinger, who has produced NBA stars Dorrel Wright and Russell Westbrook. The team is also good at transitioning, bringing down the defensive rebound and then quickly running to score their own easy basket.

The team feels as though it is lacking in a few fields of this game, but one that has come up the most is the team’s lack of size near the board. Since size is a major factor in this game, the boys will have a harder time getting offensive rebounds and having easy put-backs. Another area the boys are weak in is experience. Although all of these guys have played basketball, they lack the familiarity on court that many other top-notch players have.

Some individual players feel they need to improve their own respective skills on the court.

“As a player, I lack consistency in shots and [skills in] some decision-making,” said junior Tyler Colon.

Another junior, Sean Ostrom claims his ball-handling needs improvement. “I need to work on shooting and I need to work on post moves more,” he said.

This year, this squad is hoping to pull out more wins in the Bay League than last year. Ostrom has high hopes for the team: “We’re going to do really well and we’re going to surprise some people.”

Added junior Connor Mckeeve, “We’ll win a few games. Definitely an improvement from 0-10.”