Galloway Basketball's Upcoming Season

The high school basketball season is upon us, and the home openers have already been played. Even with the girls’ team losing star player Tianna Thompson and the boys’ team losing five seniors from last year, this upcoming season has been highly anticipated by Galloway students. That high anticipation was shown by the amount of students who came to watch and support the teams for their opening games.

The girls’ game was up first as they played River Ridge. Although the game ended with a score of 74-58 in River Ridge's favor, there were some very impressive solo-player performances. Taryn Thompson, a junior, had 16 points and 3 steals. Taryn, who has always been an impressive player, is off to a great start this season. She was already included in the preseason all-state first team. Another impressive performance was put on by Coco Rudolph, a junior, who dropped 12 points while also having 2 assists and 2 steals. Coco is a new member of the team this year but is nowhere new to basketball. Coco was also included in the preseason all-state first team. The young and impressive Sophia Louis-Pierre had 16 points while shooting 86% from the field and 100% from three. Sophia also earned a spot on the preseason all-state second team. The senior Danaya Stokes also had a very good game, putting up 8 points and 6 rebounds with five of them being offensive. Later I asked Taryn Thompson how she was feeling about this upcoming season: “I’m really excited for this season because we have so many new pieces that are gonna allow us to play on a level we never have before!” Taryn was also asked about what the players and team as a whole need to do to be successful this season. She explained, “We need to get comfortable playing with each other as new teammates to allow our chemistry to be as great as we all know it can be.” Even though the girls’ team started the season with a loss, the players are staying optimistic and seem excited for the rest of the season.

The boys’ opener, also a loss, was a competitive game. The final score was 88-74 in Cristo Rey’s favor. The game was back and forth for most of the game and with five minutes left it was a five-point game. Senior Ryan Levin had a great game dropping 24 points, with 3 assists, and 5 rebounds. Ryan also shot 66% from the field. Ryan will hopefully continue to put up impressive stats going into his senior season for Galloway. The newest addition to the boys' team was sophomore JJ Page. JJ had 19 points and 6 rebounds and played very aggressive defense. With JJ only being a sophomore, hopefully, there will be more great performances in his future. Junior Dylan Homer was asked what this Galloway boys’ team needs to do to be successful this season, and he said, “This team has great chemistry up and down the roster and I think that will help us win many games and will help us throughout the season.” Even though the boys lost, there were lots of good showings from individual players and a good chemistry among the team. Hopefully, that good chemistry will last the rest of the season for both teams so they can have successful seasons.

By Adam Berardi