Bluejay Basketball Newsletter

Week of April 4 2022

First thing I'd like to apologize for not updating the news letter more frequently. I will do better through out the summer and into next season, and make time during the season next year to update it as well. I will spent most of this newsletter recapping our 2021-22 season. It was so nice to get back to normal after two years of restrictions due to COVID, the support we had from the community at our games this season was amazing, we had some really good crowds this year. It seemed that with each game down the stretch our attendance was bigger and bigger each game. I give credit to the players, they were an exciting group to watch, and great kids who made it easy for people to want to come support them. As a coach I look for growth throughout the season, you hope as the season moves on you see improvement and hopefully that results in you playing your best basketball at the right time of the year. I think that was very evident with our team this year, we competed all season, very rarely were we blown out. However I think down the stretch this year we really hit our stride, I think the belief the guys started to have about how good we can be came in the regular season game at home against Mosinee, at the time Mosinee was 20-1 and ranked in the top 10 in the state, and were likely to end up the number 1 or 2 seed in our playoff bracket. We went back and forth with them all night and if you watched the game you could say we had every opportunity to leave with a win but we came up just short. However following the game I told the guys "We can beat that team, and we will beat that team when we see them in the playoffs" and you could see in every players eyes they knew that as well. From that point on we really got rolling (minus the long trip to Columbus). We needed to finish the conference season with wins in our final two games in order to catch West and tie them for 4th place, which is one of our goals each year to finish no lower than 4th place, I believe finishing in the top 4 year in and year out shows program stability and consistency. The WVC is a very difficult conference and to say that we've finished in the top 4 the last two seasons that I've been here is something that makes me proud, and to say Merrill has been in the top 4 that last 5 years is even more of a statement of the stability of our program. Anyway, we did just that with wins over East and West to finish off the conference season, we were heading into the post season with a lot of confidence and playing our best basketball of the season. The post season seeds were revealed and we were hosting Ashland to start the playoffs, we played a really solid game, we were able to get every player in the game including James Watts and EJ Weix who were moved up from the JV team for the tournament so both got their first Varsity minutes of their career. James also scored his first varsity points as well. With the win we moved on to face 2 seed Mosinee at their place, needless to say myself and the team were very excited to have a second opportunity against them. The Mosinee game was one of the most memorable games I've been part of, no one outside of our Locker Room expected us to go in there and take care of business. The atmosphere was beyond amazing, it was a packed gym and I was so proud of the Merrill Support as we represented half of the total attendance so there wasn't much of a home crowd for Mosinee, it was pretty equal! We played great, we executed the game plan as well as I could have hoped for, and we shocked the #2 Seed Mosinee, off to Rhinelander for the Regional Championship! We faced Rhinelander earlier in the season and beat them by 8 points, however we knew how good this team is and we'd have to repeat the effort we showed in the 2nd half of the game we played earlier in the season against them. In the first meeting we were down 10 at halftime, so I knew going in we wouldn't be over confident. We played a great first half, we dictated the flow of the game and held the momentum heading into halftime. If you go to the HOME page of our Basketball website you can see one of the Plays of Year happened in the first half of the Rhinelander game when we ran out "40" set for Michael McRae and we executed perfectly and he threw down an alley-oop dunk from Bradyn Pieper. I really can't explain the second half of the game however, we had a 6 point lead at halftime, but the second half we hit a scoring drought we haven't seen since probably Christmas break when we played in the Dells. We didn't make a shot for the first 9 minutes of the second half, we were getting good looks, we were taking care of the ball, shots just weren't falling. On the other side Rhinelander couldn't miss, guys who we weren't all that concerned with shooting from the outside were hitting 3's, it is hard to find the words to describe how that second half went. It was tough way to end the season, but congrats to Rhinelander for having a great second half. However even though we didn't get the Regional Championship plaque we did have PLENTY of memorable moments this season. The triple OT game against the Dells at their holiday tourney was an awesome win for us, sweeping Rapids and East in conference play is always a great thing, seeing guys step up when Bailey, Michael, and Jordan were injured was so cool to see, the Mosinee game again was something else and one we all will remember forever, being part of the 1st Basketball Hall of Fame night was a pretty cool and memorable experience, the night we honored Coach Adam Smith was a night that everyone will hold in their memories for a very long time, and all the laughs and fun we had along the way are memories we will keep as a group forever. Every season memories are made, however every season each team is different, this team was one filled with hard workers who competed every day of practice and in games. It was a joy to coach this group, and I'm honored to say I was their head coach.

OPEN GYM DATES/TIMES SET: As the season ends and we enter April my focus shifts to the off season, and the first thing up on the off season list is our Open Gyms. Open Gym will begin Sunday April 10th from 7-9 pm at the High School. EVERY Sunday 7-9 there will be Open Gym until the start of next season. There will be a couple Sundays in the beginning of July that we will be at PRMS, otherwise every Sunday 7-9 starting April 10th and ending November 13th we will have Open Gym at MHS. This is for ALL BOYS players, not just HS kids, any youth Basketball player is more than welcome and encouraged to attend as well.

-- Coach Pieper (Varsity Head Coach) --

Week of October 5 2021

It's an exciting time of the year, Basketball season is getting close. We are just over a month away from the High School's first practice which is on November 15th. Youth Basketball is starting to get close as well. Our 7th & 8th grade school teams will be starting their seasons in the next couple of weeks. Their first game is already on November 2nd. Any 7th or 8th grade player interested in playing School ball should sign up on Skyward and make sure all forms are filled out including Physical or Alternate year cards. Players are unable to practice or play until ALL forms are filled out on Skyward. Players should sign up on their skyward account, and parents have forms that need to be filled out as well on their family access skywards account. Another exciting opportunity we are offering this year is our Saturday Fall Skills and Drills Camp which will begin on October 30th and will run for 6 Saturdays. This camp is available for any boys grades 3-8. You can register for the camp by clicking HERE. This camp will focus on player development and will include individual skill development as well as team concept development. We will also have plenty of games and scrimmages for the kids to compete in each Saturday as well. This is a FREE camp, all campers will receive 6 weeks of instruction from Coach Pieper and his staff as well as the Youth Travel coaches. High School players will also be there to help and coach the teams during the scrimmages. Campers will also receive a camp shirt and a free ticket to a Varsity game for the upcoming season.

Summer Recap: We had a very busy and successful summer both on the court and off the court. With Spring school sports going so far into the Summer this year due to everything being pushed back a few weeks made for some difficult scheduling to get all three levels plenty of games and gym time. We found a way to schedule plenty of games for the players, and we were able to avoid having many conflicts with the other sports in the summer. I (Coach Pieper) was very impressed with all the players dedication to improving over the summer, I'm very excited to see what we can do this year. Off the court we had some exciting things as well. We had the opportunity to work in the community for Gazebo Nights where we ran the concession stands and raised some money for the program. The most exciting off the court event had to be the 1st Annual Basketball Hall of Fame Golf Outing, it was a HUGE success. It was a great day of golf and we had a lot of awesome golfers who were very generous throughout the day. The best part was announcing our 1st Merrill Basketball Hall of Fame class. I feel there is so much History in the Boys and Girls Basketball programs that needed to be celebrated, this should be an event that gets bigger and better each year. Congrats again to our Hall of Famers: Lisa (Bonnell) Handlin, Janet (Fruend) Wardall, Paul Jesperson, Dr. Jim Langenkamp, Coach Bob Yuska, and Coach Don Kerr. These six are all very deserving of this honor and we look forward to honoring them this upcoming season at a home game.

Every couple of weeks I will be putting out a Basketball Newsletter just to keep everyone up to date on all things Merrill Basketball, thank you for all the support!

-- Coach Pieper (Varsity Head Coach) --

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