The Battle Men’s basketball team had an excellent 2022-2023 season finishing with a record of 21-9, and they won the district championship. That was the best record since the 2017-2018 season. The team is looking to build off their success for this upcoming season.
The team started their season off on a good note by beating Blue Springs, Battle won off of a game winning three point play by Junior guard Vernell Holt Jr. the play made the final score 58-55 giving Battle a 1-0 start to the season. Battle played their second game versus Blue Springs South they lost a close game with the score of 81-76. And Battle played their first game in the Troy Buchanan tournament versus Hazelwood West the Spartans won with a score of 78-54 improving their record to 2-1. The second game in the Troy Buchanan tournament Battle played Francis Howell November 29th and won 85-54 Senior Tate McCubbin was the leading scorer with 26 points. And in the tournament championship game versus Troy Buchanan Battle won 65-47 and got first place in the tournament. Senior Tate McCubbin won tournament MVP. On December 14th Battle will play Montgomery County in their first home game followed by another home game on December 21st versus Benton. Looking further ahead in the season to the month of February, Battle plays their crosstown rivals starting with an away game versus Rock Bridge on February 8 and another away game versus Hickman on February 16. Last season Battle played Rock Bridge twice and Battle won both games, and versus Hickman last season Battle won once and Hickman won once.
Battle head basketball coach Ben Pallardy has his goals set high this year. “A big goal for us is always to win our conference. The CMAC conference, win that, and we will look towards districts we want to win districts again and build off of last year and find our way into the state playoff.” In order to make it further than they did last year the team will need to keep getting better. “ I think we can get better in a lot of different areas. One of the biggest things we want to improve is our defense and turning our defense into offense and I think we’ve got the team speed to be able to do that” said Coach Pallardy. One of the most important things in basketball is the forward and center position. Last season, there were two starting seniors, Justin Goolsby and Ethan Wiley. Both of them played in the post and made a big impact, so the team will need a junior post player Jack Putnam to play a big role and Coach Pallardy thinks he made a big improvement from last year.” I really feel like Jack Putnam has taken a leap he played a lot as a sophomore and started a lot as a sophomore and he’s really taken a leap to become that leader and improved his shot quite a bit gotten a little bit taller and a little bit stronger and so I would expect Jack to make some huge impacts this season”.
