At Benson High School, winter sports season is in full swing, and the Boys Basketball team is hyped for their up and coming games, feeling more than ready to take on the challenges ahead. Last year’s losses — not making it far in the league’s championship tournament — are on their mind. Richad Hudson, co-captain of the team, reflected, “You know, the first round exit is the worst. So when we lost, I think [it] let me just take what we could have done better in the beginning of the year.” 

But the team is trying to fix their mistakes with better attitudes, more leadership skills, and striving to feel more connected. “[I am] just trying to be more positive towards my teammates and lift them up, because we have a lot of young people and I want to be a good mentor for them,” Hudson continued.

The season hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, as last year they had no seniors on the team and felt like they were too new. But this year, the team is much more connected. “[I] feel like one of our strengths is that we’re honestly able to keep energy the entire time and play through kind of whatever’s happening,” said Dache Acelar, the other co-captain of the team.  “If we’re able to consistently do that and play through all the adversity all the time, then there’s nothing that can really stop us. I’m not going to lie.”

This year, they plan to go big and make it past the first round of the state tournament. Acelar says, “We got kicked out in the first round, which we weren’t expecting to do. We were, even though we were the underdogs in the first round and we were expected to lose. We got our a**es kicked, I’m not gonna lie. We just got absolutely killed. So we’re not expecting to let that happen again this year. We want to play that same team and show […] that we [are] better now […] We weren’t who we played like last year.”