It is officially basketball season at Great Bend High School and we are all wondering what everyone’s goals are for this season? What should we expect from the team? Who is going to make the most progress? 

Sophomore Ian Premer stated that their goals as a team are,“we wanna make a run at state, we’ve got a team that can”. 

Premer continued on by saying, “you should expect a really good team this year, we brought back some pieces and have some new pieces going forward”.

Premer said, “I know that we are all super excited for this season”. 

Premer hopes to learn to “shoot the ball better, free throws, mid range, and threes”. While he does believe that everyone is going to make good progress this season there are a few in particular that he thinks will make outstanding progress, he stated, “we’ve got some seniors, Maddox, Parker, and Carter, and some juniors, Izaeh and Ben, and some sophomores, me, Jake (Jacob), and Daxton, and our freshman, Cooper, we are all going to be a big part of the team going forward”. He hopes to improve on his right hand, taking it down and finishing with his right. 

Senior, Maddox Spray stated, “Our goals for this season are to make it to state and to win WAC”. Maddox continued by saying, “We have a really good team this year, we probably have a shot at a state title“. 

Maddox is really excited for the season and all of the progress that is going to be made by everyone. Maddox stated that some skills he hopes to learn are “To be a better defender and to be a more verbal leader”. Maddox said, “I think Zae (Izaeh) is going to make outstanding progress this season”. 

Maddox also hopes to improve his behind the arch shooting.  

Mersadie (Sadie) Spray, senior, stated, “Some of my goals for this season are that I personally want to hit the 1,000 point milestone, and I want the team to have a more wins than losses record. I also want us to play with consistency throughout the season,”

Sadie thinks that everyone should be ready and expect, “high energy from the whole team. We are playing fast and with a purpose, and you should expect high intensity when we step on the court,” from the girls team. 

“I am super excited for the season and the potential the team has, and I’m ready to see us tap into that potential. I especially want to see how well we can do within the WAC,” stated Sadie.

Sadie hopes to strengthen her leadership skills this season. She also hopes to learn how to change speed while playing, and learn how to read the court better.

Sadie then continued, “I believe that everyone has the potential to make great progress this season. Kenzie Premer and Alyssa McCauley have been knocking down shots in practice, and have been playing exceptionally well.”

“I would like to improve our consistency later in the season. We always start off strong, and then slightly drop off as the season progresses. This year I really want us to improve on staying up and peaking later in the season,” Sadie stated.

Izaeh Reed, junior, stated that his goals are to, “be a better teammate, win WAC, and also to make it to state and win state”. Reed continues on by saying, “We should expect a great team, you know we have a lot of young pieces and look forward to winning WAC and state”. Reed is very excited for this season and hopes he can be a better defender, being able to guard outside, and staying in front of his man and taking more charges. Reed states “We have a great senior group, Carter, Maddox, Carson, and we have a great junior and sophomore class, a lot of young pieces that are going to be really good for our team this year.”

“I want to improve on shooting from the three, I struggled with it a little bit last year, but I worked out a lot this summer so I can be able to shoot better,” said Reed.

Parker Dicks, senior, stated “My goals for this season would be for our team to win the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and to make it past sub-state and make it to the state tournament and that’s what everyone should expect from us.” He is excited for this season and is going to keep doing what he has been training to be better at over the summer and workouts. 

“I believe that Ian and Jake (Jacob) will make great progress this season, I think we will have a really solid starting five as well as a lot of depth coming off the bench,” Dicks stated. Dicks hopes to improve on his leadership skills, constantly talking on the floor and helping everyone out during the game.

Assistant coach, Courtney Wilson, has been a teacher in the district for 13 years and has been helping coach girls basketball for the last 2 years. Wilson stated “Our goals this season are to win, find new ways to score, we’ve got a couple of really powerful scorers, but to include other people in the opportunity to succeed.”

Wilson continued, “you should see a group of girls that work really hard and that all have the same goals in mind, we’ve got a really close knit group of girls this year and hopefully we really see them grow as a team and find success.”

“I really think that everyone has the potential to grow more, we have already seen a lot of great progress in our younger girls, we have a big group of seniors that are fantastic leaders but then we also have some younger girls that have improved a lot since tryouts started and I hope to see everybody grow either in their leadership or in their basketball abilities,” Wilson stated

Head coach for the boys basketball team, Kyle Kreigh stated, “Our goals for the season is to grow a team and be successful at all three levels (Varsity, JV, and C-Team). The varsity team wants to play in the championship games in both tournaments. We will play in the Kingman Classic before Christmas and the Salina Invitational Tournament. The defending 5A champions are playing the Salina Tournament so it would be fun to play them and see how successful we can be. Also, we want to win our games in the WAC. Ideally, we compete for a WAC title and know our seniors want to achieve that goal.”

Kreigh continued, “The team will be exciting to watch and we will use teamwork to achieve our goals. We want to play fast and we are looking to score as many points as possible. We expect our team to play with sportsmanship and to be respectful to officials during the games. We expect to compete in everything that we do, on a daily basis.”

Kreigh looks forward to “Having our seniors lead by example. Our seniors are Carter Coombs, Maddox Spray, Parker Dicks, and Karson Kern. They are all great basketball players and have potential to contribute in our games.”

Kreigh continued,”I would like to improve on our team defense. We will run a variety of man-to-man and zone defenses. We want all of our guys to work together and make it difficult for our opponents to score.”

We at GBHS are very excited to see what the future holds for both our boys and girls basketball teams this season. We believe that they are going to have a great season and make outstanding progress not only as individual players but also as a team, as always, go panthers!