BENTON (WSIL) -- Benton girls basketball made it all the way to a regional final. This summer they have only six practices to work with. Their biggest challenge? Finding creative ways to cheer on their teammate.
"We just want to go up and high five each other and then we are like 'oh wait, we can't do that anymore and it's so awkward,' Benton guard Addisyn Miller said.
"You can't give someone a high five when they sub in for you but when you are guarding each other it just feels like normal basketball," Benton guard Braelyn Miller said.
"Mostly we are just vocally encouraging each other and encouraging the freshmen coming in, but it is weird not being able to high five because that is what we would do all the time because we are all about encouraging each other but basically we vocally just say 'good job, you're doing great, nice try,' Benton guard Jacey Eubanks said.
The Rangers never got an opportunity to take advantage of all six practices. When the IHSA updated their return to play guidelines with no physical contact, the school shut down the workouts but the Rangers did make the most out of the practices they did get.
“We held good communication which is weird because like with the new people coming in they’re, I thought they were going to be shy but everyone was talking,� Braelyn Miller said.
“It’s kind of strange just because this is like kind of for now our normal life,� Addisyn Miller said.
“You want to focus on fundamentals but at the same time you want to get them running the floor and just get as much out of them as you can,� Benton girls basketball coach Andy Sloan said.
“More than anything, just get a basketball in their hands and get them around each other.�
“Won’t get nearly as much out of it as we have in the past but I just think getting them together, allowing them to play together is a big thing.�
“We are just going to have to all mesh together quicker than we have in the past so that we get that good chemistry like we have before,� Addisyn Miller said.
“We have a challenge when we’ve made five-thousand shots in a month where some girls did it and basically everyone did like three hundred fifty a week so that’s how we’ve been staying in shape,� Eubanks said.
And when the basketball season returns, Coach Sloan expects his team to be competitive.
“We know what we have coming back,� Sloan said. “We have two pretty good seniors that have been around and have played a lot for us and our junior class, we have three kids that are pretty strong and we really relied heavily on our sophomore class a year ago and we’ll rely heavily on them again so I think we have a pretty good core of seven or eight kids that have a chance to play a lot of minutes.�
