Out of playoff contention and with a District 10-5A record of 2 – 9, the boys basketball team goes into Tuesday’s game against McKinney High with its season nothing like many people on campus anticipated.

But from summer league play through the majority of district play, the season has been plagued with injury after injury, forcing the team to adjust in ways head coach Kyle Herrema has never experienced.

“It really has been the craziest year for injuries in the 19 years of my coaching career,” Herrema said.

With all these injuries, Herrema has taken steps to avoid unnecessary situations that could lead to more injuries in the last two games.

“Because of the number of injuries, it has really forced us to be more conservative with practice,” Herrema said. “We’ve had to limit some of our more physical practices because we aren’t in a position to lose additional people to injury. The good thing is that we’ve had a number of people who have stepped up when people get hurt and try to fill those positions of need. We’ve had some younger players really step up along with bringing a player up from the JV.”

As for game situations, Herrema has had to experiment with different strategies to see what best suits the healthy players he has available.

“We’ve started ten different lineups this year which isn’t ideal,” Herrema said. “What it also has forced us to is play people in a variety of roles, some that aren’t as familiar as others.”

The season began with an injury as senior Sam Meaders suffered a torn patella tendon during a summer basketball game.

“It was during a tournament game, and someone drove at me, and I tried to block the shot,” Meaders said. “But, I just felt my knee give out.”

In addition to losing Meaders in some games this season, the team has also lost senior Adam McDaniel temporarily.

“It was a hyper-extension and almost a dislocation of my elbow,” McDaniel said. “It was much better news than I expected. If it was a fracture my injury would have run into spring break as well.”

Despite the injuries and losses, Herrema believes that there is something to be gained from this season.

“You can have successes as a team in spite of what the win column says,” Herrema said. “We had kids that played with great effort, that didn’t make excuses, and played as a team. It would have been easy for them to point fingers, but they stayed together the entire year. I’m so proud of this group and couldn’t be prouder of them.”