Winter is here, along with the second sports season of the school year. Of the sports starting up for the season, men’s basketball tends to be the most focused on, with this season being no different. But this season will be different than the last with the home debut of Wells’ new coach, Coach Canalin who was hired in late June. 

Despite this being Coach Canalin’s first season with Wells, he has a lot of experience coaching, dating back to 2002 when he began coaching basketball. These 20 years of coaching he says there is no plan to stop anytime soon. 

The team as a whole will also have a new look with the old seniors having graduated, and new players filling those gaps. This 2022-23 team had their home debut on Friday against Sheldon High School. 

Heading into the home opener, Coach Canalin felt good about his team saying, “But, I do feel confident with the time we’ve had thus far that the team will come out with energy, will play with passion, and will do what they can for the team.” 

The game got started around 40 minutes late, and early in the game Wells was already down. It was a sloppy start to the game which the Guardians did not recover from, never having a lead in the game. Despite them never taking the lead, the Guardians fought hard and looked more competitive after their slow start.

The game ended at 60-71 in favor of Sheldon. In spite of the loss the team seemed calm and not phased by the loss. They went through the lines of high fives with the other team, grabbed their stuff and headed for the locker room. 

This game was also very small in attendance for being both a home game and home opener. Both sides of the stands were easily less than half filled and there was very little crowd noise or activity during the game. There was a “student section”, though it had easily under 50 people in it. Overall a very underwhelming turnout for a home opener.

Going forward in the season this team still has a lot to improve on, but the first game of the season is never going to be an easy one. The Men’s basketball team has their next home game on December 20th against Jesuit High School.