(This story is an archive, refer to following byline for author's name)
By Kevin Walker
The district championship-winning Bears defeated the Aledo Bearcats at the Bearcat Stadium on February 9th, which allowed them to move into the playoffs for the ninth consecutive year. The Bears won the close battle against the Bearcats in a 39-34. With the help of BJ Williams, the playoff experience of Coach Porostovsky, and the confidence of a winning streak, the team has been doing great thus far.
“With being district champs and obtaining the first seed, it gives us momentum and we just have to stay focused and keep pushing,” Williams said.
Williams is leading his team this season with the most points, he has also helped his teammates be better players on the court and be successful this season. Williams has been averaging 17.4 points per game and is currently leading his team with 278.
“BJ Williams is a tremendous scorer, and we have other players that can step up and help with the scoring as well, but the offense will go through BJ and Julian,” Coach P said. “Our team identity, however, will be on the defensive end of the floor.”
No matter the team, there will always be room for advancement and improvement.
“Our focus right now is to continue to improve each day and prepare for our first-round opponent,” Coach P said. “We still have many areas that we can get better at.”
This year's playoff run will be Coach P’s ninth consecutive playoff appearance. He has led multiple teams to the playoffs and created college-level players year in, and year out.
“I have seen some really fun games,” Senior Landry Brannon said. “The boys work great together and are super good at making comebacks, I think their team chemistry is key and they definitely have that.”
Brannon has been attending the boy’s basketball teams games since her freshman year and has seen some great runs at the championship game.
“With the winning streak they have and becoming district champions, that will help their confidence which they will continue to feed off of,” Brannon said.
With the winning streak and the recent district championship, the Bears have good momentum and confidence going into the playoffs. With the ending of the regular season, the Bears have to maintain the winning and high scoring affairs to go deep in the playoffs.
The Bears went on to face the Grapevine Mustangs in the first round of the playoffs and lost in a close score of 46-54. This ended the Bears season but Coach Porostovsky won district coach of the year and BJ Williams won MVP of the district along with Julian Perez winning Freshman of the year in the district.