sports@southwestimes.com
The Dublin Middle School boys basketball team is preparing to have a strong season with the help of a nice mix of young talent and veterans of the team. The team will not have four of their starters from last season and will have a young base this season.
Returning to the team this year are a few key players. Marcus Johnston, who played on the team last year, returns to start for the Dukes. Zack Bradley will also start and has some playing time under his belt.
Also on the team are some newcomers, including Kareem Calfee, who looks to be a strong post player for the Dukes. Coach Richard Lewis feels optimistic about these aspects, as well as some others on his team.
“Some of the new folks, including Kareem Calfee, are going to help us a lot,” Lewis said. “Our guards are going to steadily improve and get involved in the offense more.”
The team has used this week’s Pulaski Middle School tournament to help aid as a warm up for their season. They will play three games on Saturday against the middle school teams from Christiansburg, Radford, and Dublin.
So far, they have two loses in two games, but Coach Lewis has seen some improvement in his team and some things they need to improve as well.
“Our defense is getting better, but we’ve got to improve our offense,” Lewis said. “We have to improve our execution on offense.”
Despite having 14 of the 19 roster spots being occupied by eighth graders, many of them do not have a lot of playing experience. Overall though, coach Lewis feels optimistic about his teams chances this year.
“I think we are going to have a successful season,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to work on improving some things. I think we are going to have a winning season and a pretty good amount of success. We have to improve our execution and learn to run our offense better. We need to learn to play a little bit more team basketball and we’ll be fine.”
(11-13-09)
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