Basketball Players Reach for Glory at SJHS

Zachary Nemelka
SJHS Staff Writer

Coach Blakey has started to look for players for the SJHS 9th grade boy’s basketball team on Nov. 10 the day of tryouts. He was looking for players that will help his team reach the championship games of the Nebo and the Alpine Tournaments. He had two days to come up with a roster of 12 boys. These boys will have to be able to work as a team for the next four months through fourteen or more games, to be able to reach the goal of a championship.

As these young men tried to show their worth by going through challenging drills and scrimmaging with each other, they were trying to catch Coach Blakey’s eye. They must know one thing. Nothing can stop a basketball player other than himself when he is on the court. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them,” Michael Jordan said.

Coach Blakey is getting ready to start his first year as the Springville Junior High School Basketball Coach. It is different this year because it’s not a teacher being the coach of the team; Coach Blakey is a counselor being the coach. One thing that made Coach Blakey’s job hard is that he will have to cut the kids he is supposed to help. But that is a challenge he must go through to have a team that is willing to work hard “The offense and the defense will be hard to set up,” Coach Blakey explained. This is because he has 12 days to set up an offense and defense. He will still have an enjoyable time because he loves to help people improve in areas of life.

As the team will be picked hopefully by the 13th of November, the players waited with sweaty palms hoping to be on the final list. The players that made the team are Jordan McCann, Mitch Maye, Alex Cloward, Steven Bate, Zachary Nemelka, Ryan Schultz, Jalon Miyasaki, Trevor Allen, Andrew Clyde, Sean Sly, Zera Staheli, and Jordan Davis. These players will need to practice hard before there first game against Pleasant Grove these first games might be the toughest they face before the Alpine Tournament because these school are mostly 5A, while SJHS is a 4A school. Good luck.