MOHIGAN JOURNAL- JANUARY 13
by Coach Hoffman
WOW! What a great effort by the Varsity team against Martinsburg. One of the Martinsburg fans said that we may be the best team they play this year in West Virginia. I don't know about that, but if they are the best and I believe they are, then we aren't far behind. I believe we will continue to get better as our bench continues to get more experience in the big games. The bench didn't play as well as they can in the game against Martinsburg. If they had given there usual solid effort, we would have won. But they need to be in these situations, to know how to succeed. The more times they play, the better they will get. I felt like we expended too much energy to build our lead and it wasn't a big enough lead. If we would have made our layups and free throws, we would have won. On the bright side I am very proud of our effort. When we go on the road, often times the referees certainly help the home team. This weekend we can't say that they helped us any. It wouldn't feel right if Martinsburg went away feeling they got homered. We just have to hit our shots and get into better shape. Ronnie hyper-extended his shoulder early in the game, and played with one arm. He had 15 points and 13 rebounds. That showed great heart.
On Friday evening we handled Brooke with ease and the next night they beat UHS by 30 points. That should tell you how good Brooke can be. We were really putting the pressure on and they couldn't handle it. We have the ability to really frustrate good teams. Brooke will win 15-20 games and finish the season in the top ten. That was a great win. We played about 7 great quarters in two days. If we make it to states, we will have to have 12 quarters in three days to win it all. I believe Martinsburg will make it to the state championship. If we keep winning that would be the next time we would play them. I know a group of boys a that would love nothing more than that.
This week we travel to East on Wednesday and West on Friday. It will show us how good we are. East is always tough and many people have picked West as the best team in the area. Our boys will have something to say about that. We will need to use our quickness and bench to succeed this week. Stay tuned for the results. Some of the Rowdie Society members said they would like to have a bus to West. We need a couple of Parents to organize this. It would be great to have more fans there than they do. The crowd at the Martinsburg game was super as we had around 1200 in attendance. That is a record for a non UHS game for us. It was the loudest the gym has been in a long time. The Gorilla and the Society were a big help.
The JV's had a great weekend as they blew out Brooke and hung on to defeat a talented Martinsburg team. Ty Benson got hot at the right time and Josh Durham is starting to really put the pressure on. The big guys are really hitting the boards and Buzz Williams is starting to get his confidence back. Rudy had a phenomenal game against Brooke as they had no one that could handle him. Look for big things from this team. We may start slow, but I have never had a group work as hard as these guys have over the past several weeks. They are really selling out and want to keep the tradition of having the best sophomore group in the area.
The freshman team plays at UHS on Monday night. It would be great to see many of you there as we need to support each others kids. There have been several Frosh parents at Varsity games this year. We seem to be coming closer as a basketball community. It takes several people to help raise your kids. Please help each other out.
Finally, Coach Yester was awesome in the locker room after the Martinsburg game. People need to know how much encouragement he is giving this team. He believes in them like no other team in some while.
God Bless you all and GO MOHIGANS!