The girls’ basketball team started their season on Monday, November 18, 2024. They went to Avenel Middle School to face their first opponents. This season, the players and the team have improved greatly.
One player on the girl’s basketball team is Pearl Metha. She started playing basketball 2 years ago because her friends played too. She was surprisingly good at basketball and decided to join the IMS girl’s basketball team.
The toughest team they played against was the Colonia Middle School’s basketball team.
“It was the toughest team to play against because they were fast and aggressive, and they could shoot the ball better,” Metha said.
Metha averaged 8 points per game. Most of her points came from mid-range jump shots; the rest were free throws or threes.
“We won 0 games sadly. We won 0 games because our efficiency during the season was horrible,” Metha said.
Metha was happy the season was over because she hated practices.
After all, Metha hated “running all of the time,” Metha said.
Another player on the girl’s basketball team, Charvi Dedhiya, is interested in basketball because it helps her build her basketball skills and keeps her healthy and fit.
“My favorite thing is the team’s spirit and the support my team gives each other,” Dedhiya said.
Dedhiya thinks communication and strategy were some flaws she saw in her team’s play style. More practice outside of school hours would fix some of the flaws.
Dedhiya and Metha think that the team’s best player is a 7th grader. The name of the 7th grader is Natalia.
“She is the biggest and toughest out of all of us,” Metha and Dedhiya said.
The coach of the girl’s basketball team, Lisa Belly, has been coaching basketball for 10 years. This is her 16th year at IMS.
A normal basketball practice looks like this for the girl’s basketball team: They start with a warm-up and lay-up drill. Then, they do some passing drills. Lastly, they scrimmage and then play a real game situation. At the end of their practice, they usually run and do a sprinting drill.
“Most of the players felt excited and pumped when coming to practice because it’s something that is not academic but some days if it were a long day of school or if the girls didn’t get enough sleep, then some of the girls would feel tired,” Coach Belly said.
Coach Belly said that the players on the IMS basketball team cooperated well by either the way they played or in
general.
“One of the hardest things of putting together a basketball team is finding that cooperation,” Coach Belly said.
Coach Belly says that it is, “definitely possible,” to bring a trophy back to IMS next season.
Three of the seventh graders will be coming back next season and she has hopes for what the sixth graders can do as Coach Belly says they have talent.