BILLINGS — The Lockwood boys won the Southeastern A regular-season title last year, but their season was derailed by injuries at the Eastern A divisional tournament.
The Lions return the bulk of their production and have plenty of motivation as they chase some hardware this season.
“With being a young group, sometimes when you go through adversity together it brings you closer together,” Lockwood head coach Bobby Anderson said. “We saw it through the spring and summer how hungry these guys are and we’re moving forward. We’ve had a great start this year, but the old cliché, ‘Trophies aren’t won in December.’”
“We’re winning in December, but December isn’t the championship. We want to go all the way into January and then into February,” senior Jude Barnett said.
Lockwood is out to a 4-0 start as it primes for conference play firing up after the winter break. But this group has been in midseason form for quite some time.
“One of the big things coach talks about is smile through adversity and embrace the chaos,” senior Benito Talamantes said. “It’s real easy when you can do it with your friends instead of just teammates. It’s bigger than just teammates over here. These guys are my brothers.”
“It’s probably the fastest start that I’ve had with a group before. There wasn’t a whole lot of re-teaching that had to be done. Not a whole lot of install,” Anderson said. “When you build a system and you get guys to retain in that system, it kind of just carries itself. Then we have three great leaders in Kobe (Blake), Gabe (Ronquillo) and (Zicciah Callison-Blake).
“They set the stage. They lead in their own different ways, but they set the tone for us.”
It all comes back to that word — hunger. The Lions feature two seniors and a bevy of underclassmen, and they’re continuously driving each other to get better through intense day-to-day routines.
“It’s just not a very satisfied group. They always want more out of themselves, and as a coach that’s an awesome pleasure to have when you have guys that aren’t happy with early success and want more out of themselves and their teammates,” Anderson said.
The Lions are hoping this is the year they can hang a banner up in that Lockwood gym.
