WINONA LAKE – Coming off a one-win season is never easy, but that’s exactly what faces Lakeland Christian Academy’s boys basketball team this season. From the time the Cougars were eliminated in the sectional last spring to the beginning of the 2015-16 season, the focus for the team has been improvement in several areas; numbers, coaching continuity and work among them. For the first time in four seasons, the Cougars begin a campaign with the same coach they had the year before. Head coach Chris Hohm understands it’s easier for the players to come in knowing what to expect, and what’s expected. “We did have a good summer. First of all they didn’t have to get a new coach,” said Hohm. “Coach (Joel) Burrus was here for a year, then I came in after that, so everything was new and there was a little bit of a mix-up as far as ‘what does this coach want me to do, because that coach wanted me to do that. How can I just play ball instead of worrying about learning a new system?’ So the kids know the expectations and the style of play we’re looking for.” In the very recent past Hohm said only six players would show up for open gym. The current roster of varsity and junior varsity players is three times as large. With the increase in numbers came an ability for the players to push each other harder, and once practice began the Cougars have been able to implement game-specific strategies and practice them more realistically. “We used to be able to only go three-on-three, and now we can go five-on-five and that makes a big difference. We can get good, strong scrimmages. We couldn’t really simulate things before, and that left us underprepared for games. So having bigger numbers will make a big difference.” With the steps forward comes progress, but Hohm has been careful to not set a goal for a specific number of wins. Sure, the Cougars want to end this season with more than one win, but everyone understands it’s going to take time to build a successful program. LCA has won just four games in the past two years, and 17 since the beginning of the 2010-11 season. Hohm said his players are fed up with losing, and they want other teams to know when they’ve played the Cougars, they’ve been in a tough, competitive basketball game. “We want to show improvement. last year we lost a lot of games in that 30-point margin. We’re not looking to necessarily turn those games into wins, but make it a ballgame so it’s not over by the end of the first quarter,” Hohm said. “Then there are some teams that we could have battled with, that we could have played tighter last year, but we were mentally defeated. So we’re turning that around, developing our mental toughness and building our belief that we can actually do it. We’ve made progress in our individual talent, and that will carry over to our team talent.” The Cougars return three seniors with varsity experience from last year, and have five upperclassmen on the roster. Carter Twombley, Jon Harmon and Connor Blum, Evan Bremer and Skylar Harris look to lay the foundation for a winning attitude missing in the past. LCA opens its season Tuesday at Caston, and Hohm said the team “is pretty excited to get going. Caston beat us pretty good last year, and we’re looking forward to seeing how much progress we’ve made, and where we need to go from there.”
