As the boys basketball season starts to come down the home stretch with only a month remaining in the regular season, the boys have hit their stride at the right time and, entering tonight’s SAC matchup with the Snider Panthers (7:45 p.m.), have won their last seven games, three of which have come in SAC play (Bishop Dwenger, Bishop Luers, South Side) and as a testament to their success this season, the boys broke into the IBCA Coaches poll this week, taking over the #20 spot.

However Head Coach Marty Beasley doesn’t put much emphasis on that achievement.

“We’re not playing to be ranked, we (have to) prove ourselves everyday and get better everyday, and we can’t sit there and say great we’re ranked now and relax,” said Beasley

Of the teams seven game streak, Beasley gave a variety of reasons as to why the Chargers have picked up their play lately, among those are the fact that players such as Nathan Fish, Reece Swoverland, and Riley Perlich have stepped up to help Arius Jones lead the team.

“Mainly is leadership, players are taking accountability for their play (and) their teammates play,” said Beasley.

Another reason that Beasley believes that the team has gone on such a long streak throughout January was that the team has started to better settle into their roles.

“We settled into our roles a little bit, I think we understand our roles a little better,” said Beasley.

And while the boys are trying to not look past tonight’s matchup with Snider, they will soon have to focus on the future as the schedule doesn’t get any easier, with match ups against SAC-leading Homestead (2/16), a team that beat them in the SAC Holiday Tournament, and the always dangerous North Side Legends (2/6) left on the schedule, both of which are on the road.

In order for the Chargers to find success against those teams, Beasley says that the Chargers will have to continue to play hard on defense and unselfishly on offense, while also doing a better job taking care of the ball in the front court.

“We had too many turnovers the last two games, we (have to) get back to taking care of the basketball,” Beasley said.

Now at about the halfway point of the season, teams are starting to turn their focus to conference standings, a place in which the Chargers are tied for third with North Side, with both owning a league record of 4-1. Sitting in second place is Wayne which also has one loss but holds the edge over the third place teams due to having played one extra league game to this point which resulted in a win for the Generals.

The Chargers chances of winning the SAC title are slim. They have two huge games remaining, Homestead is rolling, and Wayne only has one game left in which they shouldn’t be favored (vs. Homestead).

However don’t count the Chargers out. According to the News Sentinel, North Side standout Keion Brooks Jr. is rumored to be considering prep school which would deal a huge loss to the Legends and if the Chargers can pull out a win against them and then against Homestead 10 days later, it would take just one loss by Wayne to give the Chargers the conference title.

In other boys basketball news, Coach Beasley became the winningest coach in Carroll Boys Basketball history following Friday’s 53-41 win over South Side. However this is yet another achievement that Beasley attributes to the players he’s coached as well as his strong staff of coaches here at Carroll and throughout the Carroll development pipeline from Middle School down to the youth programs the team is a part of.

“I think that I’ve been a beneficiary a little bit also of, we’ve got really good Middle School teams, Middle School coaches, we have a youth program that we spend a lot time with our players, developing players, our assistant coaches put a lot of time into it, and we’ve got really good kids” said Beasley.

Now moving to the girls side of things, the Chargers sit tied for fourth in the SAC with a record of 4-4 (15-6 overall). After starting out 2018 with a four game win streak the Chargers fell to South Side last Friday in a down to the wire contest that finished with a final score of 70-67.

However the girls recovered quickly with a 63-37 win over South Bend Adams in non-conference play on Saturday night in which Laney Steckler shot 75 percent from the field for 15 points to lead the Chargers in scoring.

Tonight the Lady Chargers will wrap up conference play against the visiting Snider Panthers with tip off set for 6 p.m. The Chargers will then face the same Panthers just 3 days later as they start sectional play here at Carroll on Monday with a 7:30 p.m. start time.

Another note, over the winter break Senior Kelli Damman reached the 1000 point plateau in a January game against Norwell. During the game Damman poured in 29 points while shooting at 85 percent including going 5 of 6 from beyond the arc.