Golden Eagles welcome rest of team post-football season
Dec. 6—With the football season now behind them and those players now at practice, Bishop LeBlond can begin thinking about how to reconquer their success from a year ago.
"This year, we didn't have as many kids not playing football as we did last year. We had to get some guys that weren't used to playing the type of minutes they played," head coach Mitch Girres said. "They got to play two games with six guys, played a ton of minutes, was valuable experience for them going forward and hopefully that just adds to the depth that we'll have this year."
This season comes with a different set of circumstances and it doesn't involve as much senior leadership as it did a year ago. Already in his seventh season as head coach, Girres has a younger group to coach and prepare. Last season, the Golden Eagles had several key seniors play a big part in the team's success when they made it all the way to the Class 2 state semifinals, but with their departure, they'll have to find some new leaders to step up.
"Those guys really helped us out to learn like all the things they did," senior Kohen Sumpter said. "With their Final Four run, it really gave us something to look at and strive for."
Monday marked the first day of practice for contributing seniors such as Landon Gardner and Jake Korell as they return to practice after a successful football season. Korell and Gardner both played meaningful minutes on the team last season, and Korell knows it'll be different with such a young group and without the veteran leadership of the seniors who graduated in 2022.
"It's gonna be hard without a lot of the seniors last year to keep our minds right," Korell said. "We just know that we need to play hard, play fast, be smooth, and just play good defense. Defense wins games."
It's uncertain how soon we'll see the Golden Eagles playing at full potential as they have a game on Tuesday against St. Joseph Christian. However, that would only leave one full practice under the belts of the players who transitioned from football to basketball.
Jacob Meikel can be reached at jacob.meikel@newspressnow.com.
Follow him on Twitter @NPNowMeikel.
