As fall sports comes to a close, basketball season starts up for your Academic Magnet Raptors. Despite a disappointing season last year, the basketball team looks to bounce back this season with a vengeance. With a new dynamic roster, pulling from both Magnet and SOA, this new team is looking to soar to new heights. In order to get better insight into the minds of these killers we took a few of them aside and asked them some questions about the upcoming season and their basketball careers in general.
First we have Mercer “Night Shift” Bundis. Despite only joining the team last year, he has already become a seasoned leader and future captain for the Raptors. When we asked him what his favorite memory from Magnet basketball was, he commented on how he really enjoyed the first practice with assistant coach Danny Johnson. Coach Johnson joined the team late last season and added much needed guidance to a young varsity team. Bundis said he predicts that the team will at least triple their wins this season and finish with a final record of 3-22. The team that Mercer is most looking forward to playing this year is Phillip Simmons. He says that he has personal beef with the school that stems back to volleyball season. Sounds interesting. I am sure that it will be a good game. He also says is most excited about this team becoming a family. How wholesome. Mercer wanted to leave us with one more quote: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s about the size of the fight in the dog.”
Next up is another senior, Noah Orza. Noah led the team in points last year and it is looking like he will continue that trend this year. He combines a deadly three point shot with his height to become an unstoppable force on the basketball court. Noah says he predicts a successful season with the team finishing at 14-11. His favorite memory from Magnet basketball is the shrine to the late great AJ Silber made last year in remembrance. Coming from a rough football season where he missed most of the games, Noah is looking forward to the engaging practices and playing Charleston Collegiate, which he says will be “easy dubs.” Noah hopes that he can up the team chem by going golfing in order to bond. Something Noah hopes to continue this year is the Hello Kitty pregame. I can not say a lot about it, but Noah promises it gives the team good luck.
Billy Baer is a junior this year on varsity. This will be his third year of varsity play after being called up from JV his freshman year. Billy was confident in his prediction of no losses for the basketball team this season. I have to agree with this prediction, why would you think to predict anything other than success for yourself? Billy’s favorite memory of Magnet basketball came from his short stint on JV. He says it was when Bennett Bair tripped and fell while running up the court while his then girlfriend was in the stands. Billy is most looking forward to playing both BE and Hanahan mostly because he says they are on Friday games so he knows they will be hype.
Eli Sherman is also a junior on varsity this year. He predicts that the team will flip last year’s record and go 24-1. Again, I like this confident prediction. Eli said he has two favorite memories of his basketball career. One of them is beating Hanahan in overtime after Walker hit a buzzerbeater. The other was beating Bishop England on their own senior night. Eli says he is most looking forward to playing any team he gets playing time against and he most looks forward to scoring 30 points every game.
The team’s favorite food spot before games is Panera Bread in Tanger Outlets. The food there isn’t too expensive and offers a lot of variety. Soups, salads, sandwiches, wraps, and baked goods come with sides like mac and cheese or fresh fruit.
Out of the 25 games this season, the boys are most eager to play Phillip Simmons in what should be a massive game. Similarly to many other Magnet sports this year, Phillip Simmons is set to be the biggest rival in the 2A division for the basketball team as well. The first game against the Iron Horses is at Phillip Simmons on January 17th and the second game will be on February 4th here at Magnet.
The rest of the team includes Thomas Hershey, Bennett Bair, Jaidon Daley, Charlie Pappas, Matthew Semenoff, and Max Tippey from Magnet. From SOA we have Omari and Jay. This year’s squad is coached by Coach Brett Johnsen and Assistant Coach Danny Johnson. Make sure to pop out to every home game this season especially when we play Bishop England at home on December 11 at 8:00. Go Raptors!
