(Guthrie Center) The ACGC boys basketball team rides a 4-game winning streak into the holiday break and is 5-1 overall.
Coach Lance Kading says rebounding has been one of the biggest bright spots with an undersized team and they’ve shared the ball well. Miles Kading and Ben Marsh combine for 36.5 points and 14.6 rebounds per game. “Miles was our 3rd leading scorer last year and had a pretty big summer so we thought he could do the bulk of the scoring for us. He had a slow start, but has picked it up since then. Ben Marsh has played really well. He started hot. The last couple of games he’s cooled a little bit.”
The team has four straight road games awaiting them next week. They’ll get back to action against Coon Rapids-Bayard, DM Christian, Madrid, and Exira-EHK. Coach Kading was asked what he hopes to find out about his team during this stretch. “Just how mentally tough we are. It’s four tough games all on the road within a matter of six days. We’ve been off since we got out of school. We’ll get back to practice on Monday and have all week to prepare for next week.”
The team is shooting 39.5% from the field this season which is 8th best in the conference. Coach Kading on what he wants to see his team improve the most as they move forward, “Maybe a little bit of shot selection. We have a lot of guys on our team that are pretty good 3-point shooters, but our team percentage is still hovering around 29%. I think we need to get that up to around 33-35% as a team.” Kading looks for players to make an extra pass to find wide open shooters in rhythm. Coach Kading also wants to emphasize defense.
Austin Kunkle averages 11.6 points per game, but will miss the next several weeks with a broken finger. Brock Littler contributes 8.2 points per game. Coach Kading says Jedd Weinkoetz has also been a key contributor with his size at 6’3″.
ACGC coach Lance Kading:
