Boys basketball had a rough start to their season, but they made some improvements as the year went on.

After losing to Rockwood Summit 55-47 on Jan. 27, the team was 1-13, but were then able to come back and win six of their last 10 games, making their final record 7-17.

Head Coach, Nick Traxler, credits much of the boys improvements to their leadership skills, “the fact that they came together as a group and did a lot of things together, I think their interactions with their teammates improved greatly throughout the year,” Traxler said.

Traxler also said the team stepped up and filled their roles despite the hard competition.

Joe Beardsley (9) was one of the players who decided to step up and earned himself a starting position on the team. Traxler says that Beardsley evolved a lot as a player throughout the season.

“I progressed a lot from the first games of the season when I only played about two minutes (a game). I pushed myself to get to where I ended up,” Beardsley said.

Towards the end of the season, the team had a five game winning streak after beating Clayton, Fox, Mehlville, Seckman, and Affton. The Mehlville game was a major highlight of the season after Brenden Gillmann (11) hit a three-point shot to tie the game within the last few seconds. The boys were able to keep this energy going into overtime and won the game 74-67.

“I was very surprised at first, but then I was happy because our team was still in it,” Gillmann said.

The team will be losing three seniors this year, Noah Baker who was the team’s second leading scorer, averaging 8.6 points a game, Matt Thorsten, one of the team’s top leading rebounders, and guard, Marcus Golden.

The team is looking forward to next season and their returning players, particularly Gillmann who was the team’s leading scorer (14.8 points per game) and rebounder (6.7 rebounds per game), Beardsley, who was tied for second on the team for rebounding, and Tommy Purschke (10) who was the team’s third leading scorer.