After winning league last year, the boys’ varsity basketball team prepares for the new season, but with the same goal. The goal, according to Coach Jose Gil, is “to play tough, hard opponents right now and learn and get better by losing because I believe that sometimes we learn more from a loss than from a victory or from a blowout victory to where come league time it’ll help us out tremendously.” The team won league last year being the “youngest varsity team with half the players being freshmen”, said Gil.

While the freshmen played a major role in the team’s success last year, the graduation of 3-year players Jesy Hurtado and Darwin Ongy will have an impact this year. The team “lost the leadership that they provided,” according to Gil.

Although the team did not move up from the Pacific Division after winning league, Gil emphasized that “because we had five freshmen and lost the two seniors; we would’ve competed but we weren’t ready yet and the teams that were in line to move down still had a lot of talent. So it would’ve been one of those that maybe in a year it switches again, so why move it if it doesn’t need to be moved?“

The benefit of having five returning players is that Coach Gil focuses more on improving the team’s mental capacity. ”It’s just us having to be mentally prepared to have everybody’s best game every day. It’s going to be a challenge to mess with their psychic and their mental state of mind- not their physicalness because physically, we get them ready and prepare them very well. We’re trying to prepare their mind to be ready to take everybody’s best punch every single night. No days off for us.”

They finished preseason at 6-6, starting off strong, but having a rough ending due to the complications the players came across, such as injuries, sickness, and family vacation. “It’s the obvious talent level that we’re competing at. It gets harder and harder. I knew our schedule was going to be tougher than before. This is one of the hardest preseason schedules that we’ve had in years just to give us that extra incentive to keep us working hard so that when we come to league, league becomes easier“,  says Coach Gil.

The team opened with a bye, but picked up where they left off last year.  “We are 2-0 right now in league, taking it one game at a time. I think if we have that mentality that every game is important and that we focus and do our job. Hopefully the results will be promising. If this year happens, I think it’s a no brainer that we’re moving up.”