O’FALLON – O’Fallon High School has a long tradition in boys basketball and head coach Brian Muniz sees good things from his young squad the rest of the season.
O’Fallon lost to Edwardsville 57-34 on Tuesday night, Dec. 10, 2024, at Edwardsville in a Southwestern Conference game.
Junior forward Ben Akoro led O’Fallon against Edwardsville with 16 points, and “played well,” Coach Muniz said.
“That was a bright spot,” Muniz said. “He was very active tonight, and he did a great job. He stepped it out; we need some other guys to step it out, and I think we’re going to get there.”
Eric Swartz, Jr. scored seven points for O’Fallon, while Pedro Wilson scored three points, and Andre Stanley, Nate Smith, Eddy Jackson, and Dancy had two points each.
“I think they outworked us there early on,” said Coach Muniz, ‘and we could never catch up. Then, when we tried to catch up, they hit some threes, we were trapping and so forth, and extended their lead. They played a great game, they hit shots, they ran a good offense, and defensively, we just did not run a very good offense. So, part of it was their defense, part of it was us, so we have to go back to the drawing board, and figure things out.”
The Panthers are a younger team than in the past, with players not having much varsity experience, but they still play hard every game, and it’s a good sign for O’Fallon.
“That’s the expectation here, “ Muniz said. “We play hard, no matter what the score is, no matter what’s going on. We just didn’t play well, so we’ve got to put those two together, we play better, and we play hard.”
It’s still early on in the season, and Muniz is confident that the Panthers will improve as time goes on.
“Like I said, this is a brand-new team,” Muniz said, “and a lot of young guys, not one guy played a bunch of varsity minutes for us last year. So, these guys are learning, and this conference is tough to learn in, because every team is good. I told these guys, every game, there are no patsies in this league. If you don’t bring it, something like this might happen.”
The Panthers slip to 2-4, and travel to Alton on Friday, and to Mascoutah next Tuesday, before hosting Collinsville on Dec. 20. All games start at 7:30 p.m.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
