Last season, the Wilcox Chargers basketball team went 16-8 overall and finished league play 11-1. Ergo, a 1-3 start to the new season could certainly be described as a slow start. Tuesday’s game, the fifth of the season, was the furthest thing from a must-win game, but the 68-64 victory over Washington was certainly what the doctor ordered.
The Chargers’ core of bigs led the way as Goodwyn Dickson, Isaiah Frazier, Pratinav Sharma and Jonathan Chang all played tough inside the paint. Not to mention Frazier and Sharma both scored from beyond the arc.
“We’re a team where everyone can shoot the three,” said Chargers Head Coach Robert Toloy on the impressive outside shooting of his stronger inside players. “Prat is actually one of our three players that have actually hit three threes in two games so far. So, we know he can make those shots.”
On the more traditional side of execution for the bigger inside players, the most notable performance was that of six-foot-five-inch forward Goodwyn Dickson. The junior got himself open and available for buckets all game long. Often Dickson was the recipient of nice passes from Frazier, but in one instance he simply ripped the ball from an opponent’s hands right underneath the offensive glass and then made a reverse layup look easy.
“You have someone who is six-five and long and he’s just dying to get his hands on the ball and finish that lay up,” said Toloy on Dickson. “He’s gotten a lot better as the season goes on. He’s going to keep getting better and better.”
Frazier, who came away with three assists on feeds to Dickson, played arguably the best all-around game for the Chargers. Between knocking down a three, spreading the ball around with his passing and coming up with a steal on defense, the junior brings a lot of versatility to the table.
“He’s his own worst enemy sometimes,” joked coach Toloy. “He’s just got to have that confidence to keep going after it even if he misses a shot, because he can do big things for us.”
Frazier is the only junior captain on the team, to go along with senior captains in Sharma and Brendon Yi. Frazier gave credit to coach Toloy and the rest of the coaching staff for the work in recent practices paying off against the Huskies.
“I thought it went really well tonight, our past games have been close, but some mistakes would cause the outcome to flip in favor of the other team,” admitted Frazier. “But today in practice, they drilled us really hard and we were able to cut out those mistakes and get the win.”
Wilcox will look to continue their winning ways when they next take on Lincoln on Friday the 13th. In total, the Chargers will have at least six more non-league games, including a NorCal invitational tournament just after Christmas before league play starts on Friday, Jan. 3 against Lynbrook.