CHERRYVALE — The Cherryvale Chargers boys fell in their first two games of the season, falling to Independence at home on Thursday, 72-31, and Riverton on the road on Friday, 54-43.
In Thursday’s loss, the Bulldogs, an on-paper contender in the SEK League, outpaced Cherryvale.
“The guys are starting to see the speed of the game,” Cherryvale head coach Scott John said. “Indy did exactly what we thought they were going to do. We just have to get up to speed with it.”
John still praised the Chargers’ defensive effort early in the tilt.
“Honestly, I thought we got after it defensively,” John said. “We had them frustrated in the first quarter. We were playing with energy. That’s something you can build on. When they went on their run, it was off our mistakes. We gave up a lot of points on turnovers and we didn’t help ourselves.”
Freshman Remington John led the Chargers with 12 points.
As a team, the Chargers struggled at the charity stripe as Cherryvale went 11-of-26 on free throws.
“We’ve been shooting free throws in practice,” John said. “How many we took is good. We were aggressive getting to the lane and getting people to leave their feet. But we missed too many. We’re still on our 12th practice, so we’re still getting those free throws up.”
Stats from Friday’s loss were unavailable at press time.
“There’s nothing we can do except moving on to the next one,” John said. “We’ve always got to focus on the next play. We can learn from our mistakes. If we keep the same effort we had defensively, we’ll be all right.”
Up next
Cherryvale competes in the Wildcat Winter Classic at Yates Center this week.
“There’s a good field of teams there,” John said. “We’re going to see some quality opponents to build off a tough start to the season. We’ve just got to keep working and keep everything in perspective.”
