As the 2023-24 winter sports season approaches, all eyes are turning to our boys basketball team as they seem to be starting the season with a clean Slate.
Ending the 2022-23 season with a substate defeat against West Des Moines Valley also came with additional losses for the team. As 2023 graduates Si’Marion Anderson and Keishaun Pendleton committed to Western Iowa Tech Community College, the Wahawks lost two of their strong athletes.
On top of losing athletes, the coaching staff has seen quite a few changes in recent months. Beginning with the resignation of Varsity Head Coach Cliff Berinobis and Assistant Varsity Coach Ben Barnett, the varsity team was in for big changes within their coaching staff.
Alongside Berinobis and Barnett, sophomore coach Jarred Johnston also left the program. Johnston held a large part in the program as he ran social media accounts and sent regular emails to students and staff to keep them up to date on the season.
Despite losing valuable players and coaches, the 2023-24 season is looking bright for the Wahawks. “I look forward to growing as a team and getting closer to one another,” says junior Joseph Hudson. As he has played on varsity since his freshman year, Hudson shares his hopes for the season, “I personally want to make the first team all MVC and 1st all-metro as well as average around 15ppg.”
As the coaching staff is changing, Derrick Slater will take over as interim head coach for the team. Alongside Coach Slate, coach Jonah Woodward returns as a varsity assistant coach after he took a year off from the program.
In addition to the rearranged coaching staff, West High welcomes two transfer student onto the boys varsity basketball team. Transferring from Hudson High School, junior Brailyn Love shares his excitement for the season with a new team. “I’m looking forward to building chemistry with my teammates on and off the court. We did a lot of team activities over the summer that made my transition easier,” he said.
After spending his freshman year at East High School, Love transferred to Hudson High School where he shares how the favoritism affected his playing time. “I had really no chance at all to make the varsity team,” he says.
Junior Cooper Doland returns to West High after spending one year in another program. Doland played for the Wahawks for his freshman year during the 2021-22 season but transferred to Hudson for his sophomore year alongside Love. “I never felt at home when I was at Hudson and felt like the team just shrugged me off,” Doland says. He shares that since transferring back to West High, he already feels more involved and welcomed on the team.
Love expresses a similar feeling about his former school and shares how the Wahawks have been more welcoming, “West has always been my home district prior to leaving the Waterloo school system.”
For the upcoming season, Dolands shares that he hopes to contribute to his team in everyway that he is needed. Love follows this up with the hopes that he gets better after each game.
To see the Wahawk boys basketball team kick off their season, you can attend the Jamboree at Cedar Falls High school on Tuesday Nov. 21.
