Varsity boys basketball played the Junction City Blue Jays on Dec. 9 at Hays High School, with Junction City earning the win by a score of 47-45.

The Indians are led by new head coach Sean Dreiling, who, before the game, said, “I’m excited about it. I think we can hopefully rebound because we had a loss on Tuesday. But, I’m excited. I think our boys are ready and waiting.”

At first, the boys team worked well together; it was not until the third quarter when Junction City started to pull ahead of the Indians. It was a battle of defense with only one quarter left in the game.

“We just have to be able to go under pressure, be confident and be strong with the ball, and I feel it’ll be all right,” freshman Dawson Ruder said.

In addition to Ruder, the varsity team includes seniors Keamonie Archie, Landen Clark, Kyreese Groen, Devin Schmidtberger and Chason VanDerWege and juniors Kyzer Fox, Edwin Muller and Jack Weimer.

Groen said the team is strong due to their athleticism.

“I think we all just fit a role in a certain place, along with our athleticism,” Groen said.

Although the Indians could not secure the win against Junction City, Dreiling said the team is still capable of making its way to state this season.

“I just feel like we get better every day,” Dreiling said. “You know, we’ll reach our potential.”

26gkimbrel@usd489.com & 26azarate@usd489.com