The seventh-grade boys’ basketball team ended its season at Rockford, Dec. 18. “I was very happy with the progress of the team, Coach Barry Strand said. “Two of the goals we stressed as the season progressed were to become a better shooting team and to be able to apply consistent defensive pressure on our opponents.” The Cubs improved with each game. “We started the season with a loss by about 35 points, but throughout the first six games, the spread became less and less until the team came away with a win against St. John’s Prep,” Strand said. The Cubs’ improvement showed in the first half of their final game. They jumped to an early lead, but ended up losing the game by one point. “We struggled to score in the fourth quarter and Rockford was able to gain the lead with under a minute to play. “It is always tough to lose a hard fought game,” Strand said, “but hopefully the bad taste of a loss like this will simply fuel the players of this team to keep working on shooting and other basketball skills as well. I would like to thank the members of the team for their hard work throughout the season and would also like to thank the parents for their support at all of our games.” Team members were: Bobby Arens, Josh Almgren, Andy Dingmann, Travis Erickson, Chris Johnson-Fuller, Ben Knaus, Justin Kuechle, Andy Mackereth, Brian Wills and Tom Winkelman.
