After winning just their second game of the season against Eureka on Jan. 5, OHS boys basketball hosted Webster Groves in their home opener on Jan. 10. Webster, 12-2 on the season and ranked fifth in St. Louis by STLtoday.com, beat the Tigers by a score of 65-43.

This loss brought OHS to nine on the season, only two less than they had all last year. Their record currently stands at 2-9, and out of their fourteen remaining games, three are against ranked opponents. They play forth ranked Collinsville on Jan. 21, fifth ranked De Soto on Feb. 14, and seventh ranked De Smet on Feb. 16.

Despite the struggling season, head coach Nick Traxler believes his team is improving tremendously. He thinks the final scores of the games aren’t always a reliable depiction of how the games actually went.

“If you watch our games, you can really tell a difference between earlier in the season and now,” Traxler said, “in the Webster game, we played very well for three quarters, we let one slip away and that cost us the loss.”

Through the first eleven games of the season, Austin Gillmann (10) remains the leading scorer and rebounder for OHS. He’s averaging 11.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Also, Ervin Sarajlic (10) is contributing 10.6 points per game as well. Coach Traxler likes what he’s seen from his young players so far.

“Our ball movement on offense has improved a lot,” Traxler said, “it’s creating easier opportunities for our guys to score. We still need to minimize our turnovers but we’re beginning to turn the corner.”