The Andale and St. Marks/Colwich boys middle school basketball teams have been making their impact this season. Andale is currently 7-1 and St. Marks/Colwich is currently 5-4. These middle school teams are part of the Central Plains Middle school league along with Chaparral, Garden Plain, Cheney, Belle Plaine, Kingman, Trinity, Independent, Douglass, Conway Springs, and Medicine Lodge.
The Andale 8th grade boys basketball team is coached by Dan Buchanan. This is his second year leading the way for the 8th grade boys. Last year the team made it to the semifinals and then were knocked off by Chaparral. That same year the seventh grade team made it to the finals, but fell short against Garden Plain. Will we see the same story this year?
We asked Dan Buchanan if he thinks the AMS team is improving so far his response was, “Yeah I think our the team is learning the value of teamwork as we move along through the season I think we are working on more team play and then of course I think we have to be impressed with the defense. We have figured out that we can get a lot of baskets if we work on the defensive side of the ball and not always being on the offensive side.” We asked him what the team needed to improve on and Buchanan said “Oh I think our work ethic is never as good as any coach wants it to be and we can’t have two guys playing and three guys taking the play off. We have to be more proud that we can play hard every play.” Our last question consisted of “What is one thing you want your kids to learn going into high school?” Buchanan’s response was, “That it’s okay to understand that coaches are going to coach you hard in practice so that you can learn to enjoy the games.”
The St. Marks/Colwich 8th grade boys basketball team is coached by Blake Springer he has been coaching the 8th graders for three years now. Last year their 7th grade coach, Wes King, retired. King always pushed them and talked to them after the games and told us what they can always do better. Last year the 8th grade team at St. Marks played at Medicine Lodge for the finals but lost all of their games. This season they’re goal is to continue to compete and always work hard.
