The Edward Milne Wolverines senior boys basketball team is primped and ready for a season full of success.
According to Trevor Bligh, senior boys coach, the team has seven players returning, if you include the juniors who played up last year.
“We’ve got two Grade 11s that played with us last year, that played as Grade 10s, so you can almost say we have seven returning,” he said.
“This is a big pay off year, this has been three years with these guys on the junior up to the senior (level). We took some bad licks along the way to get here and get to where we want to be and to be able to play the kind of ball that we’re at,” Bligh said.
“We’re ready to win now.”
The boys have been practising eight hours a week since September, with some team members playing all year round with the Men’s Basketball Club system.
“We’re really excited about what we can do this season and I think the pieces are there, bar injury, bar something weird that happens in sports,” Bligh said.
The team’s goal is to make it to the Island Playoffs, which EMCS has not accomplished since 1998.
“People know me say I haven’t been this excited since 1998 -- the last time we went to the Islands and missed the provincials by a game,” Bligh said.
“We’re poised and we’re ready to do it. We’ll play five of the top 10 in B.C., so these guys are going to get a chance to get themselves ranked in the province, if not the Island by the time we’re done.”
The boys have their first game at Glenlyon Norfolk school at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 28.
Their first home game will be against GNS at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6.