Sarra, Raiders seek improvement, section wins
The Waynesburg Central Raiders boys basketball team comes into the season looking to improve upon an 8-14 record from last year that came with the consequence of winning no section games.
The Raiders will start the season minus seven seniors, including as three starters, from last year’s team and return just two starters in guard Ty Negley and forward Kolbi Phillips.
Coach Dave Sarra didn’t mince words when asked about his team’s goals for the season.
“Obviously, our goal every year is to qualify for the playoffs, as is everyone else’s goal,” Sarra said. As for team specific goals, Sarra said his team wants to “compete nightly, improve game by game and play as a team. That would be our goals for the upcoming season.”
Sarra also defined his team’s strengths and weaknesses.
“Our strengths would definitely be our guard play,” he said, referring to Ty Negley, Hogan Barnhart and Adam Fox. “We have a lot of guards. Another strength is our team play, since we have a lot of hustlers and our quickness is a strength,” he said. “Our weakness would have to be our overall size.”
Sarra realizes that his team must improve in certain areas in order to achieve success.
“The areas that we need to improve on from last season are our team defense, rebounding and our shot selection,” he said.
The Raiders look primed and ready to take the next step for the upcoming season after the winless conference record last season. The Raiders begins their season on Dec. 9 in the EQT Tournament at Canon McMillan. Six teams from western Pennsylvania will be participating in the tournament, as well as two teams from Kentucky. Waynesburg travels to West Greene for an exhibition game on Dec. 14 before opening Section 5-AAA action with a home game against Washington.