Chase Bentrup (9) used to play soccer, baseball and football, but that all changed when he found out what he really wanted to do and that was to play basketball.

He never expected himself to play basketball and get as good as he is now.

“I started playing when I was like three or four, so 10 or 11 years, and I started playing because my parents signed me up for it. My mom is big on basketball and the rest of my family is too,” Bentrup said. 

He doesn’t only play basketball at OHS, as he also plays club basketball. For Bentrup, there’s a big difference between the two: high school basketball is people placed together to make a team while club basketball is more organized with the people they pick to be on the team.

“High school basketball is alright. It’s pretty challenging. There’s a lot of running, a lot of cardio, a lot of weight lifting and stuff like that for basketball,” Bentrup said. 

According to Bentrup, basketball can be really challenging if you don’t know how to manage your time and your grades.

“I”ve always played it, so I mean I enjoy it because of that and I like the energy of it, but it interferes with the rest of my life and it kinda causes some problems with my grades and such,” Bentrup said.

He learned how to manage his time with basketball and school by reminding himself that it needs to get done when he has free time.

“Don’t do really challenging classes and try to play sports while having other activities going on because you just won’t have the time or it’ll be hard to find time to do other things,” Bentrup said.

Bentrup is a forward on the OHS freshman basketball team. His role on the team is to score, assist and to board.

“I think our freshmen team will be pretty good. I think JV will definitely be good, and I think our varsity team is going to be pretty good,” Bentrup said.

He sees himself playing basketball in college, but if he doesn’t, he would like to be an engineer.

“If I get a scholarship for college, I”ll play, but chances are pretty slim, so I don’t know yet,” Bentrup said.

His advice for future basketball players would be to have a lot of confidence and learn how to shoot consistently early.

“Have like a really big ego,” Bentrup said, “just like have all the confidence in the world and think you’re better than everybody else.”