The basketball season has not started the way the Firebird basketball team had hoped, with 4-4 record (going into 1/18/07).

“In some ways I am pleased because they are becoming a better team although it is not pouring over into the win loss category,” head coach Chuck Law said.

The team’s schedule is not going to get any easier. Next they have the McPherson tournament and then Olathe South comes to town. This team is young with a junior

point guard Kris Wilson and a sophomore guard coming off the bench, Marcus Spates.

The only experience is with the three seniors and two juniors.

“Any team that has success is based around its seniors, so we need our seniors to step up

for us to be successful,” Law said.

The top two scorers on this years team to this point are juniors Westin Wiebe and Kris Wilson.

“We are a young team, a growing team, but we have a lot of room for improvement,” team leader Christian Ballard said.

Ballard who starred on the grid iron said he wants to make Free State a basketball school and not just a football school. Free State has had a couple close losses that they could have won but did not close out. The most devastating loss was to Lawrence High School

when the Firebirds fell in the final seconds 43 to 42.

“We just haven’t finished games, so the improvement is not shown in the win loss

column,” Law said. It is only going to get tougher for Free State as they get deeper into

league play the teams get better and harder to match up with.

“We are athletic enough to match up with anyone but with basketball skill and execution

we will have to be on top of our game,” Law said.

The Firebird seniors are setting the stage for a very deep and talented sophomore class.

“We are setting the stage for the underclassmen, all we need to do is keep working hard

and take what we do in practice into the games and get more fan support,” Ballard said.