Thursday, November 29th, G-R 8th grade Boys Basketball team opened the season in Gladbrook, against South Hardin (Eldora, Hubbard and Radcliffe communities). G-R won the contest 53-23, now 1-0 overall. We played an up tempo game style with a lot of hustling and defense 1st thinking and it paid off holding the young Tigers 23 points. 8th grade Rebels have 9 players on this year team, same number of players as last year’s 8th grade team. We did a great job of overall teamwork, always passing and looking for the open player, pushing the ball up the floor with quick short passes as this 8th grade team likes to get out and run the floor. Leading the Rebels were two players worth special mention: Joe Smoldt, 18pt game, and a perfect 6 for 6 from foul line night combined with 6 steals defensive effort for him, plus a solid overall game for Matt Roeding being our team leader in both areas of 6 assists and 8 steals night combined with 10 pts for him. When you face this year’s team you better come ready to play these young Rebels came out aggressive setting the tone by scoring 2 seconds into game and we never looked back. Other Rebel’s scoring were Thomas Mussig 8 pts displaying his greatly improved skill set from last year, Tyler Pierce 7 pts and a team high 7 rebound night, Erik Knaack 2 pts, followed by Alex Tscherter, 1 assist, 1 rebound, Spencer Goos and Jaden McGhee both with a 1 steal and 3 rebounds game, Jed Peterson 1 assist 1 rebound, 1 steal game. Our upcoming schedule is Dec. 7th at Gilman, Dec. 11th at Gladbrook vs BCLUW, Dec. 17th at GMG, Dec. 20th at Grundy Center, with starting time of 4:15p.m. for 8th graders.