by Savannah Sorensen

Over winter break, the Trojan boys basketball team started the second half of their season strong with two wins over Kuemper-Catholic and St. Albert. Last Friday evening, the boys hosted Kuemper-Catholic and defeated the Knights 69-59, improving their record to 5-1 on the season.

On Saturday afternoon, the Trojans traveled to St. Albert where sophomore Garrett Franken’s buzzer-beater layup won the game for the team. Franken scored 22 points throughout the game for the Trojans. Head coach Alan Jenkins said this last second shot was a major highlight of their success throughout winter break, “For fans, our community, that is an exciting game.” Jenkins said, “But for me personally, as the coach, the biggest highlight is our continual development of depth. We have a good number of guys that can help us win on any given night.”

According to Jenkins, improving as a team as the season progresses is important. Jenkins said, “We need to get better defensively. I want to see us get our defensive average around 50-52 points per game and right now we are at 58-59 points per game. We need to guard the ball better and keep it out of the lane. There are always areas to improve.”

The Trojans traveled to Harlan Tuesday night to take on the 3-3 Cyclones. They lost in double-overtime. A story about this game will be posted later this week.