The 2021-2022 basketball season has started, and I sat down with two seniors on the varsity team to talk about their first home game back on the court for their last high school season.

Angel James is a senior at Centennial who has been playing basketball since 5th grade but not competitively until the 8th grade. He has played for our school for three years, this year being his first on Varsity.

Centennial played Evergreen High School and lost 65-72.

“First home game was a little disappointing, we had a lot of turnovers that were unnecessary. I really thought that we could win, it’s unfortunate but I’m looking forward to the next home game,” said James when I asked him how he felt about the first home game of the season.

Thankfully this season friends, family, and fans can be in the crowd at games cheering on the team. I asked James how it felt having everyone back out to the games.

“I honestly love it, it brings the energy and hype yeah I just love it,” James said.

I asked James what he thinks the team could improve on for their upcoming games.

“To not get sped up, execute our plays, good transition defense, and not turning the ball over,” stated James.

The last question I had for James was what is one goal he has this season.

“Our goal this season is to make the playoffs and win some games, that’s the general goal,” James said.

I also interviewed senior Jalen Ross, who has been playing basketball since he was 2 years old. He has played all four years in high school, this is his third year on the Centennial varsity team.

I asked him how he felt about having friends and family back to support him during games.

“It feels good, brings us energy and helps us play better,” said Ross.

When I asked Ross how he thought the team did the first home game he stated, “I feel like we did good, even though we lost. We did good but we didn’t do good enough. I’m still scared from that loss but we’ll figure out how to bounce back from it. I feel like we let people down and disappointed them but we’ll bounce back, it’s only the first home game of the season there’s many more to come so we have time to make corrections ” Ross claimed.

“We have all the pieces we need. We just need to work on eliminating turnovers, transition buckets, hustling back, putting more effort, having more energy, and I feel like we’ll be fine,” Ross said when I asked him what the team could improve on for their next game.

The last question I asked Ross was what is one goal he had for himself or the team this season.

“To make the playoffs, to show everyone we’re winners and be able to win and make everyone here happy. We want to be able to change the culture of this school for sports, I feel like we can do that,” Ross exclaimed.

The season has only begun and the varsity team doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon.