To kick off the basketball sports season, coaches Connor Lusso and Mark Williams provide insight to their goals, potential setbacks and anticipations for the season.

After coaching freshman boys to now coaching varsity girls, Lusso knows basketball inside out. As Lusso begins to learn about his new team, he formulates attainable goals.

“[My goals are] for my girls to have fun and to be successful and get better at the game of basketball,” Lusso said.

While there are a few setbacks on the girls basketball team such as number of players and most of them being underclassmen, Lusso strives to create an environment that upholds high standards for his team. 

“By keeping practice fun, keeping it positive, getting the girls going and finding out things that they like,” Lusso said.

Knowing that basketball requires commitment and dedication, Lusso intends to focus on building bonds, a positive atmosphere and keeping practices engaging, yet challenging for his team. 

For the boys team, Williams returns to coach another season. After last year’s 6-18 record, Williams has many ideas and goals outlined for a more successful season.

“Our hopes are to be much more competitive this year, and I think we got some good team chemistry and team unity that we hope will translate to winning,” Williams said.

Williams mentioned that most of the players on the boys varsity team last year consisted of freshmen and sophomores. He hopes that the experience from last year will help the team.

Instead of focusing on the size of the team, Williams prioritizes his expectations for the upcoming season. 

“I think we have good student athletes,” Williams said. “They’ve worked really hard to try to get prepared for this, and I hope they get rewarded. But, I do know they’re gonna give great effort, I’m looking forward to watching them play hard.”

However, preparation only goes so far in a Class A conference. “We know we have a lot of challenges ahead of us,” Williams said. “Our conference and our schedules are as tough as anyone. We are lacking Class A size. You know as well as I that there are not a lot of 6’7” guys walking around the building outside of me. But, I say it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

Despite their various and unique challenges, both coaches and their teams hope to start the season strong and with determination.