The 2022-2023 high school basketball season is upon us and the Avalon Boys Varsity Basketball Team is rearing and ready to go.
A small group consisting of seven players (five Varsity and two JV) have been hard at work in the gym since the beginning of September.
These athletes have held up the fort while our football/basketball players have been taking care of business on the gridiron.
There is no doubt that when the football players join our team they will be in great mental and physical shape, especially after such a successful season.
In the meantime Senior Wallace Keppel, Juniors Aaron Castro and Cole Konigsmark, Sophomores Jacob Mello and Matthew Bastida, and Freshmen Morgan Curiel and Kayden Rubio have been working hard to improve their dribbling, passing, shooting, rebounding, and defending skills.
Curiel and Rubio will play on the JV team this year and hope that their preseason preparation will pay off when the games begin.
Keppel, Castro, Konigsmark, Mello, and Bastida form a strong group that hopes to be the foundation of future Lancer success.
When the football season ends these five players will be joined by Senior Adan Ventura and Juniors Brandon Moreno, Darren Hall, Manases Rubio, David Talsky and Jose Vasquez.
These 11 players are a formidable group of student/athletes and have the potential to lead us back to the playoffs.
We have been placed in a new division for our league play and hope to compete for a league championship and earn a spot in the C.I.F. Playoffs.
This season the Lancers will be sporting new uniforms, shooting shirts, practice jerseys, basketballs, traveling jackets, and traveling bags thanks to our players’ hard work in fundraising over the past three years and the generosity of the following organizations or establishments: Bucks From Bobby, The Locker Room, Avalon PTA, Avalon Rotary Club, and Avalon Lions Club. These groups have matched the funds that we were able to raise through our selling of burritos and working of marathon stations.
Together we have combined our physical and financial resources to make us look like a team.
Now all we have to do is play like a team.
This is the time for us to put our mental and physical talents to the task and hopefully form a cohesive group of basketball players ready to take on the always tough small school basketball competition.
We have 22 games on our schedule, 16 at home and six on the road.
Our first game is the Annual Alumni basketball game on Friday, Dec. 2 beginning with the JV game at 6 p.m. and the Varsity game at 7 p.m.
We will honor our 2019 and 2020 League Championship teams at halftime of the Alumni game.
We encourage any players who were on either or both of these teams to attend the Alumni game so you can be honored and recognized.
This event is a fundraiser for our program so we will be charging at the door.
We have our season opener the following day, Saturday, Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. against Geffen Academy.
Come on up to Hickey Rohlik Fieldhouse and support your local high school hoopsters as they embark on a new season.
