Winter sports athletes plan to dominate this season
Sophomore JustinHoward celebrates his State Debate championship with his teammates. It is Baldwin’s first state debate title.
As fall sports comes to an end, winter sports begins. Baldwin High School’s winter sports are known for great teams. In fact, boys basketball, girls basketball, and wrestling practice are already underway.
Last season boys basketball had a very successful 19-3 season. For sophomore Elliott Stiefel, they can have a successful season this year as well.
“If we keep practicing and learning new moves we can communicate as a team,” Stiefel said.
Even though boys basketball has lost key seniors such as Chad Berg, Cornell Brown and Quinn Twombly, senior Christian Gaylord stays persistent that this season will be just as good.
“We do need to work harder and have smart gameplans for upcoming games,” Gaylord said. “But if we do that I think we will have a great season.”
Another very succesful team is the BHS wrestling team, last year the team sent six people to state competition, including junior Owen Tuckfield, who believes they still have a great team.
“We have a lot of returning wrestlers from last year so yeah I think we can have a strong state finish this year,” Tuckfield said. “Wrestling is life.”
In last year’s wrestling season, two bulldogs placed, graduated senior Tucker Clark and senior Jon Pratt, both of which placed at state.
“We lost some good seniors last year both in skill and leadership,” junior Wyatt Slavin said. “They were definitely some key wrestlers.”
Not only was boys basketball a sucsess, but so was girls basketball, who had a season record of 11-10. Senior Maddie Ogle believes the team will be much better than last year.
“I think we have a lot more seniors stepping up to be leaders than we did last year,” Ogle said. “We have a lot of younger girls stepping up.”
With the amount of energy they now have on the team, it seems like they can only do better.
“Everyone on the team seems enthusiastic and focused which is great,” sophomore Katherine Smrha-Monroe said.
Boys and girls basketball teams both play Tonganoxie at 4 and 6 p.m. tonight while the wrestling team competes at 9 a.m. this Saturday in Gardner-Edgerton.
