The JV basketball team, under the direction of JV coach Laura Carter, played their first official games of the year and placed third at the Lee’s Summit West High School tournament Nov. 28-29 and Dec. 1 in which eight schools participated.

The three day competition gave the team of sophomores and freshmen the opportunity to play together against different schools and put the techniques and skills they had been working on in practice to use and see how much improvement they will need to make, according to sophomore Molly Wagner.

“Since this [was] a preseason tournament, we focused more on what we can work on as a team for this upcoming season,” Wagner said. “Once we get to know how each other plays and get [our] plays down, we will develop into a pretty solid team.”

With the tallest players on the team measuring in at 5’11”, the team focused on using their speed to make up for the lack of height, according to Wagner. These games also, for the freshmen, were the first basketball games of their high school careers.

“I [was] excited to play, but also a little nervous,” freshman Lauren Tourtilott said. “I hope that [through] this tournament I will start to learn my plays better and also start to figure out how my teammates like to play.”

The JV season is just beginning and as time goes by they will continue to work on learning how to function as a unit and be encouraging to one another, according to Tourtilott.

“In order to be successful this season we will need to maintain a positive mindset. We aren’t going to win every game, and when we get down, we need to be able to pick each other up and try to fight back as hard as we can,” Tourtilott said. “We don’t really have the feel for how each person works… [but] I think as the season goes on, our team dynamic will improve a lot.”