The boys Basketball team will play their first playoff game on Tuesday, Feb. 27, against Southeast High School at the Pirates’ home court in Ravenna.
The bison enter the contest with a 6-16 record, but the record doesn’t tell the full story as Beachwood has played noticeably better down the stretch of the season and have taken multiple close losses, including falling by only 4 points to both Chardon and Bedford towards the end of the season.
In addition to these close losses at the back half of the schedule, they were able to notch a few key wins against rival Orange, Andrews Osborne Academy and Wickliffe.
Junior guard Jacob Thomas is proud of the team’s late season growth.
“I think we all matured throughout the season,” he said. “I noticed we were able to improve not just individually, but as a team. Being a young team with no varsity experience, we were able to improve as the season went on.”
Senior guard Daniel Rub agrees.
“I think we’re a whole different team than we were at the beginning of the year,” he said. “Everyone has individually gotten better, and as a team we have gotten better.”
Senior Jonathan Mo feels that they are a completely different team than at the start of the season.
“What helped us succeed later in the season was being patient on offense and not forcing a ton of threes,” he said. “…We’ve come a long way.”
Some of the underclassmen who have grown a lot this season include sophomores Jayden Koonce, Cj Payton and freshman Eriq Walker, who have worked to improve the bison’s offensive output.
Last season Beachwood was able to go a long way and ultimately win a very impressive district championship. Thomas is hopeful the team can make a mark in this year’s postseason as well.
“This postseason I definitely want to make the district game,” he said. “I would also like to see our team play well and carry on our improvements into next season. I think we have been underdogs pretty much every game this season, and we still are in the playoffs.”
Last year’s district championship was achieved by a very different roster than this year’s team, with last year’s team composed mostly of seniors, including 1,000 point scorer Nathan Lurie.
The Pirates enter the contest with a record of 11-11. Like Beachwood, the Pirates come into this game on a hot streak, going 4-2 in their last 6 games. Senior guard and 1,000 point scorer Garret Sprutte is largely responsible for that success.
Sprutte leads the Pirates in practically every single category this year with 28.4 points per game, 12.4 rebounds per game, 3.0 assists per game and 1.9 steals per game.
For the bison, the plan to stop Sprutte and win the game to advance to the next round of the playoffs is pretty simple.
“We have to stick to what works on offense, and we have to play better defense and rebound better,” senior Daniel Rub said.
Junior Nick Reese emphasizes the importance of team dynamics.
“When we can play for each other, we are so much better,” he said. “We plan to get stronger on defense, play as a team and get better as a whole.”
Reese has been an integral part of the success for the bison both on offensive and defense.
The big men of the bison have stepped up greatly this season as well. Senior Robert Friedman and sophomore Larry Clark have both done a lot of the dirty work for the bison this year, scoring down low, getting big rebounds and making it tougher for opponents to guard the bison.
While the team got off to a slow start this year, it’s clear they can compete with a variety of teams and have the potential to make a run. It will take the continued playmaking of Jayden Kooce and the senior leadership of Daniel Rub and Robert Friedman, but this team is definitely not ready for their season to come to a close.
Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, the team’s future is very exciting due to the growth that’s being shown game by game and the great potential of the underclassmen.
