The Aplington-Parkersburg basketball teams will play their first doubleheader of the season when they host Sumner-Fredericksburg Monday.
Coming off a 20-3 season, the boys will open the campaign with two newcomers to the starting lineup. Along with bringing back leading scorer Benny Waller at 20.1 points per game, Head Coach Aaron Thomas says they have some key pieces to build around.
“Tyler Wedeking was our third leading scorer last year, and just his physical growth and the gains he’s made being stronger, just growing taller,” Thomas says. “Those two guys are going to be the two guys probably everybody’s going to key on without a doubt, but Sully Janssen is much-improved offensively, Trevan Thomas much improved offensively. You can just tell they put in time. They’re much more confident and comfortable shooting the ball from the three and attacking the hoop. And then Wes Shirk who had really played really well last year, we’ve seen him shoot it really well in practice, even played some for us late last year. Now as a junior will be a guy that we need to score the basketball. And then just still trying to figure out who’s those next guys that round out our rotation. We probably won’t figure out for a couple of ball games, but we’ve got some options and I think some different guys will get opportunities.”
The Cougars will begin their season after going 12-11 last year. Two of their top three scorers are back.
The Falcon girls will look to build upon last week’s 62-19 win over Hampton-Dumont-CAL, where they dominated the boards with 44 rebounds and recorded 20 steals. It’s the season-opener for Sumner-Fredericksburg, which went 7-16 last year and has two returning starters.
The doubleheader will start at 6:15 p.m.
