Hixson’s crew looks to build on 2020-21 season
RANDOLPH — An inexperienced Randolph Cardinals basketball team took its lumps a year ago, but a strong finish late may have been just what this year’s team needed.
Randolph went 7-15 overall under Jim Hixson in his first year as head coach and that was after a 1-10 start.
Hixon hopes that won’t be the same situation this year, although the slate once again will be difficult.
“The beginning of the season is always tough, and our schedule just sets up that way,” Hixson said. “I would not be surprised to see us struggle again to begin the season. We lost four of our five starters off last year’s team including our leader and best player in Justin Haselhorst. We do however return Collyn Beal and Jacob Calder who gained valuable experience last year to go along with our lone returning starter in Tom Korth.
“We will be young this year with only three seniors. The sophomores and possibly the freshmen will be called on for depth and possibly to fill some starting roles.”
Beal and Calder will be looked at to make big impacts for Hixson, especially in terms of filling up the rim.
“They both have potential to be scorers,” the Cardinals coach said. “Tom will need to rebound better after the loss of his 6-6 brother (Sam) to graduation. We have some sophomores with some size, so they may be called upon to rebound for us this year.”
The Cardinals expect to take last year’s positive feelings into this campaign and that could lead to some big results.
“My goal for this year’s team is to improve over last year,” Hixson said. “This will not be an easy task when losing four starters, but I feel if the seniors show some strong leadership and the juniors and sophomores develop, improving on last year’s record is possible,” Hixson said.
Tom Korth said that the team has looked pretty good after the first practices even if they are a little out of shape.
“We aren’t looking too bad,” Korth said. “It’s early in the season, so it’s hard to tell, but I am pretty hopeful. We have some experience and more fresh bodies to sub in. We are ready to go.”
Korth said that after a rough season in football and last year’s struggles in both, the Cardinals are “tired of losing” and trying to change that narrative.
“When we don’t have practice, we come in and shoot around and we played in summer leagues so that gave the incoming guys some experience and to get in the rhythm of things,” Korth said. “We got some good shooters and ballhandlers. We have some physical people, and we should get more boards. We needed some more physicality last year.
“Our posts last year could have been a little more physical.”
Korth said the team is also better in the weight room so the Cardinals are much stronger.
“I think we will have a winning season,” Korth said. “We have experience and that’s a top thing. A lot of other teams lost some good seniors from last year.
“I think our seniors have a lot of rhythm and where the other people are going to be and that helps a lot. We put a lot of the blame from last year on ourselves and we have fought to get better.”
