Arman Zadeh, sports writer, and Marguerite Alberts, staff writer
From Nov. 30 print edition
Point guard Nima Rafiezadeh began the year practicing with the boys’ varsity basketball team by doing drills and working to perfect his skills with one goal in mind: to win.
The team, coming off last year’s historic playoff run, has high hopes for its upcoming season. With the loss of nine key players from last year’s team, including graduates Austin Mills and Frank Brown, the team now looks to fine tune the current weaknesses of this younger team and plan another playoff run.
In order to strengthen their defense, the team’s biggest weakness, the team does defensive drills that are one-on-one and full court including defensive shooting, led by head coach Jarvis Turner.
Along with defensive drills, the team does a lot of different workouts to get into top physical conditions by running on the track and working in the weight room.
“[We] prepare by going 150% during practice, having lots of energy, and we all have to be willing to listen to Coach Turner,” Rafiezadeh said.
Besides working hard in the gym, the team works to become a closer squad outside of school. Every year the team goes to team captain Daniel Dayan’s family’s lake house in Three Rivers, Calif., helping point guard, Justin Ifekunigwe, to help them better themselves as a unit.
“I think Justin is going to help us out a lot this season.” Cohen said. “I’m really excited to see how he plays in real games.”
Despite the change in players, both Ne man and Rafiezadeh remain optimistic that they will have a succesful season.
“I expect us to do better than last years team, win our league and win our section,”