Cole basketball teams surpassing expectations this season

Basketball fever is running rampant at Robert G. Cole High School with both the boys and girls varsity teams in the playoffs. Although this isn’t the first year that both teams have made it this far, this season is a standout one for the Cole Cougars.

This year is unique for the Lady Cougars because it’s the first time the players have been together for multiple seasons. At a military-based school, this is a rare occurrence. 

Lady Cougars head coach and new athletic director Tina Guerrero relates that she struggles with the amount of students that have a permanent change of station each year.

“It affects our programs in general because we have no guarantee that our kids are going to stay and that’s what make it challenging,” Guerrero said. “We have been fortunate enough to keep a certain group for four or five years, which has helped us build our team.”

This group, made up mostly of seniors, includes Antoinette Barnes, Dalesia Booth, Loreany Hernandez, Chandre Nuñez and Cara Taliaferro.

“Since we’ve been playing together for such a long time, we know how to work together,” Booth said. Booth recently committed to the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi to play basketball next year.

Being able to grow as a team is definitely a benefit that the Lady Cougars haven’t had before. Most importantly, it represents cohesion on the court.

“In my opinion, our biggest strength is our chemistry,” Guerrero said. “We are a very unselfish team; the players work well together, they know what they have to do and they’re ready to play.”

The boys’ basketball team is in an equally interesting and admirable situation. This is Justin Morrett’s first year as a head coach and he had the challenge of coaching a team of mostly underclassmen.

“We only have two returning lettermen from last year, so we are really young this year,” Morrett said. “It’s kind of special that people didn’t expect us to do so well since we were going to be so young and inexperienced.”

The team has already surprised many people by tying for the district championship with   Randolph High School.