The Aplington-Parkersburg boys basketball team recently finished its season at 17-6 overall. They fell short of the state tournament, but Head Coach Aaron Thomas is optimistic about next season.
The team will lose 10 seniors, five of whom played regular varsity minutes. Thomas says several underclassmen, led by sophomore starter Benny Waller, can help the team move in the right direction.
“To only lose one game at the JV level and to have the success that they were able to have, they practiced against our varsity every day,” Thomas says. “For sophomores, obviously Benny, but then Trevan Thomas and Sully Janssen played some meaningful minutes and both those guys really get after it defensively. Sully coming back off a nasty elbow break, wasn’t able to play until about Christmas and Trevan, just the growth he’s made in the last two years and the time he’s put in the gym on his own. So excited about those two guys. And then Gavin Allan’s a guy who I think is going to be right on the cusp of competing for varsity time next year. And then our juniors are a very talented bunch. Evan Palmer just couldn’t be healthy. He’s a guy who can really score and I think he’ll have a breakout senior season next year in our league.”
Key returners are expected to be Waller, Caleb Campbell, Trevan Thomas and Evan Palmer.
Thomas on the expectations with a potentially new-look team.
“For coaching, it’s always kind of fun when you get to reinvent your team and you got kind of those new names and maybe we won’t play exactly like we have the last couple of years. It’ll be interesting to see where we go. But that challenge and the expectation we talked about at our banquet, the expectations won’t be any different to compete for a conference title, to push that 20-win mark and to qualify to the state tournament at Wells Fargo Arena.”
The Falcons went 6-2 in the NICL-Central and ended their season in the district final against Grundy Center.
