Four hour practices. Intensity workouts. A towering 6’8 senior Amiel Terry.  These are they key components for the varsity baketball  team this year.

“We have had a lot of off-season training and workouts,” Terry said.  “We did Intensity, which is like P90x without that weights and that was hard.”

The loss of key players such as Patriot District Player of the Year Karl Ziegler will be tough, but the team also has many strong returning players.

“We have a lot of experienced and key players coming back,” head coach Anthony Harper said.  “They have the mentality to win.”

Among those players are seniors Monte McCarthy, Reggie Scott and Terry, along with junior Sanar Shamdin.

“We have good talent and have been conditioning hard to be the best.  We have had practices as long as 4 hours,” McCarthy said.

The team maintains high expectations for this year and is striving to surpass last year.  The Atoms fell to T.C. Williams in both the district and regional championship, but are looking to avenge that.

“Our goal is to hopefully go back to the state tournament, but really we’d like to win districts and then regional’s this year,” Terry said.

Coach Harper agreed with Terry, “[We’d like to] finish in the top half in districts and get to the regional championship.”

The Atoms face a tough schedule this year, playing against some of the best teams in the state.

“We play Montrose Christian which is a very good team, but every district game is important,” McCarthy said.

The end of the season is a long ways away, but the team is keeping their eyes fixed on the game ahead of them.  The Atoms will play host to the Robinson Rams on Nov. 29 at 7:30 in the main gym for their first game of the season.