'Pride' to define boys basketball this season

The Hot Springs County High School Bobcats basketball team will head to Wright for the Coal Miner's Classic this Friday, marking both the start of the 2015-2016 season as well as the first game of coach Kevin Gerber's run at the helm of the varsity team.

Coach Kevin Gerber noted that his team's excitement for the beginning of the season is matched by his own anticipation: "Honestly, it's awesome," he said.

This is my fifth year coaching, my first year taking over as varsity coach," he added. "The energy is as high as I've ever seen it. It's been incredible."

Gerber said his team has been practicing hard all week in preparation for their tournaments this weekend.

"We do a drill called pride drill. It's my favorite; it's a really high energy, fast-paced little drill," he said, adding that the name of the drill, pride, is what he hopes this season will be all about. "To me, it is what our team will signify. The fact that it is called pride is really important to me."

Gerber has another single word to describe his defense: chaos. "It's a fly around, sprint defense that is hopefully going to cause chaos and really get the other team turning the ball over. Defense is a huge thing we're talking about."

Although this season will mark Gerber's first as head coach, he was able to work with current seniors on the team while they were playing on the freshman team. There are six seniors and four juniors on the varsity roster this season, which makes this team the most seasoned with which Gerber has worked.

"There's a lot of experience, and they've been playing together a lot," Gerber said of the upper classmen on this year's team. "You can see the chemistry on the court."

The chemistry is also due to the fact that the team only graduated two seniors last year, one of whom was a starter.

The varsity and junior varsity teams will both be competing in this weekend's Coal Miner's Classic. The freshman team will travel to Lovell to compete in their first games this Friday and Saturday.

Varsity players returning for their final season are seniors Grant Byrd, Dominic Jensen, Tyler Cornwell, Michael Meier, Cameron Igou and Eric Herold.

Juniors are Jake Maksin, William DeVries, Keegan Robbins and Logan Bartholomew.

Hudson Roling and Noah Schwalbe are the only underclassmen both sophomores, on the team.

The junior varsity team is comprised of juniors Ryan Johnson, Brett Nicodemus, Trey Davis, Alex Jensen, Josh Burrows and Cameron Burrows. Sophomores Liam Whitt, Strite Daniels, Clemens Abbott and Cade Zupan are also on the team.