H&H Bearcat Boys Basketball team practicing with the new head coach, Patrick Alexander – Heartlandbeat photo
It’s a whole new era for the first-ever H&H Bearcat Boys basketball team with plenty of unknowns. Thirty-eight boys reported out for basketball, and Head Coach Patrick Alexander is ready to take on the challenge of combining two schools into one team.
Coach Alexander has extensive basketball coaching experience, including most recently coaching the junior high boys team at Hampton last year. He has taught Social Studies/History at Hampton High School since 1998 and has served as an assistant basketball coach under the highly successful Hampton boys’ basketball coach, Jerry Eikhoff.
Assisting Coach Alexander this year are Marc Regier from Heartland, Dylan Bamesberger, and Noah Jones from Hampton. With 13 incoming freshmen and a high number of boys on the team, there will be ample opportunities for junior varsity, reserve, and freshmen games.
“Right now, I think we have some really skilled kids and some different guys who can fit into different roles,” said Alexander. There are a few kids out with injuries who he hopes are back later in the season. There are seven seniors on the team – Westley Bell, Porter Dose, Wyatt Dose, Josh Goertzen, Trenton Goertzen, Landon Mierau, and Holden Switzer. It helped that many of the players became familiar with one another this summer, participating in the Varsity and JV Cross County Team Camp in June. They also hosted games with Sutton and Cross County at Hampton.
“A lot of people talk about potential, but we like to talk about the capability gap. We tell kids this is your gapability and this is where we see you performing, and then we talk about how to narrow that gap,” said Alexander.
When asked about the upcoming schedule, Coach Alexander said, “Right now, we are only focused on Fairbury.” The Bearcats open at Heartland on Thursday against Fairbury and will travel to Wilbur on Friday to face off against the Wolverines.
Front sitting on the floor L to R: Landen Rowjewski, Asher Daly, Westley Bell, Josh Goertzen, Landon Hansen, Waylon Tessman; Middle row seated: Jack Goertzen, Hudson Gloystein, Ben Thomas, Trenton Goertzen, Nevada Gloystein, Landon Mierau, Zane Schwartzendruber, Wyatt Dose, River Glinsmann, Holden Switzer, Luke Janzen, Brayden Wolinski, Cason Bamesberger, Bentley Hagen, Brendon Doyle; Back row: Hudson Hurt, Carter Peters, Brayden Holbein, Heston Switzer, Jagger Regier, Rigs Newton, Camden Riggs, Maddox Regier, Brian Bearinger, Noah Miller, Hayden Perez, Rylee Scheidemann, Jace Kisler – photo courtesy Cody Farrall. Not pictured: Aiden Bartek, Brooks Burgess, Kyler Dose, Porter Dose
Bearcats practicing this past week at the Hampton gym – Heartlandbeat photos
