The Liberty High School boys basketball team has started to prepare for success for their upcoming season. The players and coaches have been doing various activities during their pre-season to perform their best abilities during the season. 

They have had many camps since the end of last season. Ones who could attend went to Randolph-Macon College for the Paul Webb camp, a camp where teams go to stay at Randolph Macon for three days and participate in the camp. 

“We go as a team every year to the camp. We stay there for three days and do activities like scrimmages, conditioning, and more fun related things for us to enjoy,” said senior Derrick Brooks. 

Tryouts for this upcoming boys basketball season will be held on Monday, November 11th, 2019, in the gym. The boys looking forward to trying out have had the option of conditioning after school to help them get whipped into shape. Along with giving them the opportunity to get to know and work with their new possible teammates. 

“Well we do weight lifting almost everyday and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Coach Frazer has us run the track,” said junior Russell Morton. 

“We do conditioning every day after school to build up our stamina and then have open gym where we can actually play against each other,” said senior Sean Doores. 

Many athletes don’t only play basketball, but play a fall sport as well. Even those stuck in the middle of their fall sports season are looking into the future and starting to prepare themselves for their basketball season. 

“Since Bryan and I are currently in the middle of football season, we have to go to practice instead of conditioning. So we go to the gym on our own time and try to go to all the Saturday fall league games we can,” said senior Tre’von White. 

Fall league is a pre-season league where the basketball team every Saturday goes to a high school and scrimmages against other teams, those schools being private and public.

“We do fall league every Saturday morning and scrimmage against other teams to help us see as a team what we need to improve on and get us all comfortable working together. That way we can then start the season off confidently,” said Doores. 

The team has of course already put goals into action as well. Most have a couple personal and team goals to accomplish success this next season. 

“Honestly, I want to be able to coach this year. I want the guys to be able to take care of themselves and each other. I also want to be able to focus on our team on the court. I will always be there for them, but I thought we spent too much time on distractions last year. I want these guys to be able to focus on the season at hand. If we do that, the wins will take care of themselves,” said Head Coach Patrick Frazer. 

“As a team we need to learn to be less selfish and work on really working together as a team to be successful. To also make it further in the playoffs is a major goal for a lot of us,” said Morton.

Some of the players have also based there upcoming season goals simply on things they want to improve from their past seasons. 

“As a senior, I personally want to help encourage the team to be better individually and as a team. I would personally improve by making district first all team, which is reachable if I put the work in. As a team we just need to improve from last year and perform on the court as best as we can,” said Brooks. 

Tryouts have yet to happen (when article was written), so a set team is not in place. Everything is fair game as of now and those who put in the work will get rewarded! Many seniors graduated off the varsity team last year leaving many opportunities for new and ready to work athletes. Everyone is looking forward to the excitement for the new season. 

“Our team is younger this year. We only have five new returning boys so it’s a lot of new personalities and faces,” said Doores.

“This team has a bunch of great guys and I can’t wait for the season. There is nothing like the grind of the season and the excitement of game nights. People are going to be talking about Liberty basketball for all the right reasons,” said Coach Frazer.