Going into their final exhibition game against Agua Dulce this past Tuesday, Santa Gertrudis Kingsville Academy High School’s varsity boys basketball team - a young bunch - open up their District 32-A campaign against Santa Maria this Friday.

“We only have two starters from last year,” Head Coach Matthew Gonzalez said. “Many of the other returners from last season did not see a lot of playing time. So we pretty much have a lot of inexperienced players, guys who were on the bench last year didn’t get in a lot.”

On this year’s team are Alex Segura, Caleb Canales, Chris Ainsworth, Emilio Martinez, Connor DeLaney, Mark Vela, Eddie Resendez, Aaron Ramon, Carlos Valdez, Raul Garcia, Lalo Gonzalez, Randy Cavazos and Raymond Alaniz,

Fielding such an inexperienced team, Gonzalez knows the best way to mature his players is by getting them on the court.

“Just playing time, getting them involved and through practice pretty much” Gonzalez said. “We struggled at the beginning of this season but with the help of Coach Hector (Gonzalez) we are giving the kids more individual help, a lot more one-on-one, and are playing a lot better than we were at the beginning of the season.”

The Pride’s improvement these past 20 games has been on the offensive side.

“We are running the offense and shooting a little bit better,” Gonzalez said. “We’re limiting our turnovers and playing more as a team, better in sync, and that is helping out a lot.”

Academy’s biggest hindrance earlier this season came from their tendency of giving away the ball.

“Our turnovers gave our opponents a lot of easy baskets and prevented us from getting our offense going more,” Gonzalez said. “Now we are doing a better job of holding onto the ball and getting our offense better started.”

One big plus for Academy this season is their resoluteness on the court.

“We do the little things like taking the charges and diving for balls; there is a lot of hustle from this team,” Gonzalez said.

In his first season as the Pride’s head coach, Gonzalez can easily give you the names of the top 32-A teams who will test Academy this season.

“Santa Maria is last year’s defending champion, that’d be one,” Gonzalez said. “Benavides is also very strong, Bruni has a lot of kids and La Villa is going to be another tough opponent for us.”

Managers for the team are Gary Gonzalez and Jeremy Holt. Also assisting Gonzalez is James Jefferson.