A New Start
Volume 3: December Comments Off
By Ashley Ornelas and An Nguyen
This season, our basketball team started it with a bang. They have a new coach, Jake, which is our principal’s son. He has been working with them and preparing them for future games for the past couple of weeks. The Phoenix boy’s basketball team has eight players. The team players are: Jon Vu, Alex Alexander, Jeo Bautista, Chris Rotan-Smith, Hakeem Oladunjoye, Christian Diaz, David Batista, and Nick Sidhu. They have been practicing as much as possible every single day of the week to ensure that they do the best they can.
Though they lost their first four games, they have really improved. Their first game they lost 64-39 against Saint Francis, their next game they lost 66-11 against Homestead, and lastly their third game they lost 78-37 at Gonzalez High school. So you can see that although they had a rocky start, they are improving. Hakeem Oladunjoye a basketball player on the team stated, “We are starting to get used to each player.” Jon Vu, another player on the team, stated, “We communicate more, and we play good defense.” The boy’s basketball team is finally starting to work as a team and trying to cooperate during the game. So, we are hoping that our basketball team in their next game can win it for us.
We have 8 players on our team, and they all have a lot of talent. Jon, a senior, is the point guard; Jeo, a junior, on the team is a point guard as well; Alex, a junior, is the center; Chris, a junior, is a shooting guard; Hakeem, a senior, is a small forward; Christian, a senior, is a power forward; David, a junior, is a center; and last but not least is Nick, the only freshman on the team. Not only do we have good players but we also have a great coach named Jake. Jake has been working really hard with the boys and is starting to get this team together. Oladunjoye gave his opinion of Jake, “He’s cool, he’s more relaxed, and he wants to be more of a team than just having wins.” Both our new coach and the team have done their best and are really trying to make this season a success for us.
Although our team is getting better, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Oladunjoye stated, “We need to work greatly on our teamwork. I think we all know it, but don’t know what to do about it.” So, we can see that our team does not have a lack of skills but of teamwork. Vu had a different opinion, “We need to win. We are doing everything right but we are not scoring.” So, maybe it’s a lack of confidence. No matter the reason our basketball team is doing their best.
We are hoping that our team can bring home some wins and break the losing record that we have here at LPS. The whole school should give support to our basketball team and go to the games. An upcoming game that they will be playing is against Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto on December 18th and they will. We know that they will be prepared for these games and that though they may not win they will still have their pride because they did the best they could. Phoenix Rocks!
admin @ December 19, 2007