week3journal

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MOHIGAN BOYS BASKETBALL JOURNAL- WEEK 3 
By Coach Hoffman 
Its been a couple of tough weeks at the Williams house as Tim and Buzz's Uncle and now Grandfather have passed away. They are on Sally's (Tim and Buzz's mother) side of the family and lived in England. Sally will be with her family in overseas for a couple of weeks. If you want to send a note to the Williams family, their address is 220 Diamond Ave. I'm sure its hard for the Williams family, but with our prayers and the support of the Mohigan basketball community, they will get through these tough time. 
 
We handed out bags and travel suits to the players at practice this week. The athletic department contributed almost $3000 to the boys basketball program this fall. The varsity has a new set of uniforms and all three of our teams are among the best dressed in the state. And they should be. We should want for nothing and have the best. If you are going to ask your kids to commit like they have, then we have to show our complete support. Our Athletic department with Kelly Johnson in charge has always taken good care of our players. 
 
All Varsity and Junior Varsity parents are invited to a reception at the Fogarty house after the scrimmage, this Friday night. Dr. Fogarty is trying to get parents together, so they can work together and better support our players. Coach Yester will speak to the Parents at this meeting. You are asked to leave your car in the "weightroom" parking lot and walk to their house. The Freshman Player parents will have a "get together" at a later time. Speaking of the Freshman, they will play their first game this Wednesday vs. Bridgeport (I think at Bridgeport). They will play Elkins at the Clyde gym on Thursday. Game times will be announced early this week. Come out and support our small, but talented and hard working Freshman team and of course "Coach V." 
 
This Friday night John Marshall will visit the MAC (Morgantown Athletic Center) for a scrimmage with our JV and Varsity teams. The JV will begin their scrimmage in the Clyde Gym at 5:45 and the Varsity will begin at 6:00 in the Main Gym. The Monarchs are a powerhouse team from the Northern panhandle. They played in last season's Region 1 Championship. They will present a big challenge for our two teams. Coach Storm will have a scouting report in the News and Views page later this week. He coached JM this summer in Summer League. As you know he graduated from JM five years ago and is currently finishing his undergraduate and graduate degrees at WVU while helping us with the team as a volunteer coach. He has gone way beyond the call of duty as a volunteer and will make a great coach when he graduates. He has become the players favorite coach. (Besides me of course) Seriously, the players, relate well to him and he always has timely suggestions. 
 
This past Friday, we played at Keyser. The Varsity won the scrimmage 112- 56. Keyser is young and didn't present much of a challenge to us. I'm sure as Coach Jordan (Keyser coach) has some more time with his Golden Tornadoes, they will improve. Their hospitality after the game was very impressive. They always treat us well when we go there. I hope we can treat John Marshall as well, Friday night. After the last varsity scrimmage, Coach Yester blasted the team in the locker room, challenging them to play harder and concentrate. He said "If we play that way, we won't win more than 7 games this season. We didn't look like a state championship contender." I echoed his feelings this past Saturday, by telling the team they need to concentrate on defense and block out better. It looked like we were in our fall ball mode. You know the "hurry up and shoot the ball, so we can get it back," defense. We don't have to pace ourselves, we have enough depth so that players can go out of the game and we can still be effective. I feel like this is our advantage compared to the other teams in our region. On the bright side of things the Varsity moved the ball well and did score 18.6 (112 points in 6 quarters) points per quarter. If we average 70 points a game we will not only be exciting to watch, but also will win most games. 
The JV team on the other hand, won their scrimmage 57-24, at the Keyser Middle School Gym. The floor was about the size of our Suncrest Gym and didn't allow us much room. We had too many turnovers and the ball didn't get reversed enough. However we did play excellent defense and this team needs to do that to be a tough team to beat. As you know we may be the tallest Sophomore group in the state. Kameron is about 6'5 plus, Drew and Ben are better than 6'4, Tyler Benson has shot up to almost 6'2 as has Zach Solly. Ty Jones has always played big and is a stout 6'1. Rudy is about 6'0, and Buzz and Josh are at about 5"11. If we can just stay between our opponent and their basket, contest every shot, and get every rebound, we will be tough to beat. 
say your prayers for the Williams family, and I hope to see you at the Friday night. 
 
submitted on December 2, by Coach Hoffman
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