The 2023 MECA Basketball season has come to an end. They have created many memories not only for themselves but for the MECA community.
The players had an exceptional season because of all the hard work they put in.
They make sure to have fun while working to get a win for the MECA fans cheering them on. Junior Xander Small, the Point Guard, explains practice as an enjoyable experience as they, “ just do drills, have fun, and talk in between.”
Another junior on the team, Noah Villa enjoyed getting to spend quality time with his teammates during practice. He mentions, “The practices are very fun, as we compete against each other to improve our skills and have a fair and enjoyable basketball experience together.”
The players on the team all played together during lunch, so they already had chemistry with each other as teammates, and what strategies worked for them. This gave Coach Gabriel Nichols confidence in his team before the season began. However, there is always room for progress, as Nichols notes. After games, they saw what they were not doing well, and would make efforts to improve. He shares, “Rebounding we worked on a lot, passing we worked on a lot, running more plays we worked on a lot and so I think we did a really good job after every game, saying, ‘okay now this is the next thing we have to get better at.”
Practices were especially enjoyable as everyone got playing time. Whereas, in games, not everyone gets to.
“In the games, you only play five people at a time and we had fourteen people on the team so we kinda fight for playing time, as not everyone gets to,” Nichols expanded.
Similar to the players, Nichols enjoyed practices, as much as, if not more than the games, He elaborates, “In practices, we’d scrimmage for 30-40 minutes and everyone would get in there and everyone would get to play and so they would compete really hard and so it was like a real game every practice, so watching those, coaching those, commenting through those, that was fun too.”
In their first away game, they won by nearly 50 points! To celebrate this accomplishment, they went to In-N-Out, which Xander Small feels was one of his favorite moments throughout the season, as they got to spend time together after their victorious win.
These changes will help their season next year, as well. Nichols expands, “I now know what we need to have ready next season so we’ll even be better. Our first game next year will be better than our last game this year.”
Looking forward to next season, Nichols is hoping to add more games to their schedule so they can have a more challenging, longer season.
Nichols inspires more students to become involved in the activities at MECA. He excitedly said, “There’s a lot of good things happening at this school”
He feels his players have enjoyed school more, as they have become more proud of being MECA students, as they continuously played for wins. “The players that put effort into it, it made their experience here at school better. I hope more students experience these kinds of things.”
There will be a volleyball team, so this gives even more students a chance to become more involved in the MECA community. Nichols shares his feelings. “I hope students see these activities and involve themselves in the ones that they want.”
This has been a basketball season full of memories made not only for the players but for those cheering them on game after game. This is not the last you will be hearing of the MECA Basketball Team.
