Photo credit to Spartan Shield staff

A basketball player competes in a basketball game.

As fall sports come to an end, Pleasant Valley athletes end their seasons with pretty strong records. In an article written by Carli Spelhaug, she sums up the fall season as the weather cools and winter begins to blow in.

With official practices beginning at the end of October, athletes and coaches are beginning to predict how their seasons will turn out. Boys and girls basketball, boys swimming, wrestling, and coed bowling are all in season during the winter.

Boys and girls basketball lost a few seniors this year, but both teams are still looking to be strong competition in the upcoming season. Girls basketball ended their last season with a record of 21 wins and two losses. Boys basketball had a closing record of 19 wins and three losses. For this season, both teams are hoping to make it to state and take home the win. Athletic trainer Jason Veil talked about his predictions for this season of basketball. Veil said, “I think both will be top three in the conference.”

This year’s wrestling team is expected to do a little better than last year. Head coach Jacob Larsen said, “I feel we will have great participation and an increase in numbers.” Because of the incoming freshman and returning varsity wrestlers, Larsen continued to say, “I expect us to be more competitive within the MAC and overall in tournaments as well.”

The bowling team is also preparing for the season. Both JV and varsity bowling are expected to have a decent season. Cory LaBarge, a senior on the varsity bowling team said, “I’d say that we have a pretty solid team, we have four guys who have been on varsity for the past three years, so I would say we have a lot of experience.”

Boys swimming is last, but definitely not the least of the winter sports. With the large number of seniors and all the new raw talent coming from the incoming freshman, the team is predicted to do well at state. Senior Kevin Burke thinks that this year’s team should win districts after placing second in 2015, first in 2016, and second again in 2017. Burke said, “Hopefully, we should be able to win [districts] this year because bettendorf lost a really good senior and I don’t think they are gaining very much and we should be pretty good this year.”