The basketball season for both freshman teams  has already started, but the season is still fresh. The freshman Lions go to Georgetown as well as face Vandegrift, Cedar Park, Marble Falls and Eastview in their upcoming games. After facing a tough loss to Belton, the Lions continue to practice hard and continue to work on teamwork.

Although some of the freshmen players feel that they play hard, some believe they could play better and stronger. Of course with a freshmen team, there are rookie mistakes but it’s a great time to practice for varsity and junior varsity in their future years and also build the framework for a great team.

“[During practice we’re] just learning more plays it’s just early on this season as freshman we don’t know all the plays yet so trying to get that,” freshman Brock Cantu said, “and build up our vocabulary of terms on the court and stuff.”

Coach Will McNeil continues to work with his team on preparing for these next few big match ups as many are big rivalry games. Both teams’ players are confident that they can become great teams as they advance the season.

“We’ll amp up our practices and try and make our plays more efficient,” freshman David Wolfe said, “and remember all of our assignments.”

The freshmen A starters are Joshua Long, David Wofle, Kyle Decker, Beau Stanford and Noah King. Players agree that the defense needs a little work, but mostly the offense needs to be more aggressive.

“I think that we should work on our shots,” Decker said, “knocking them down, and having more of an aggressive offense.”

The freshmen B starters are Daniel Bonner, Sean Malone, Isaiah Gage, Brock Cantu, Logan Vollmar, Michael Jorgensen (Jorgensen and Vollmar occasionally switch out as starters) and Jake Alexander. Players agree that ball control and defense are key to their success.

“We have too many turnovers,” Cantu said, “but if we focused on ball control and passing it better, then I think we can do a lot better.”

The freshman B team faced a tough beginning season but the team is still confident in their season. The players continue to work on their rookie mistakes and continue to get more acquainted with the team and the players continue to practice on defense and posts.

“We’ve been practicing, really just trying to work it down to the posts, because that’s what we really need to work on because I think the guards right now are kind of scared about that, but once we get their confidence up that’s when we should be getting a lot more points,” Bonner said. “For me, I think I really need to work on my defense a bit, because as a post you’ve gotta be solid on defense, because you can’t let the other guy get the ball and score right on top of you.”

“So far we’ve only had two games, but we’ve lost both, but it’s because we’re still trying to get into the group of things,” Bonner said, “but once we do I’m pretty sure we can be a very skilled team.”

McNeil is confident in his players and believes that they can improve on their attributes. McNeil feels that the team needs to improve on ball skills and defense. The freshman coach also feels that the team also needs to reduce turnovers and make more layups and rebound the ball defensively.

“We’ve improved already a ton and I think because of their work ethic and their good work habits, they’re here every day,” McNeil said. “It’s never an issue about coming to practice and working hard at practice and like I said we’ve improved a ton already and I anticipate them to continue to get better.”

Freshman Calendar