Van-Far boys basketball remembers losing in the district championship to Clopton last season on a last-second 3-pointer.

The Indians hope to at least win that district title after losing in the championship game the last two years.

Head coach Pat Connaway is entering his final season as the head coach and would like to see this group accomplish even more this year. Van-Far’s senior class has accounted for 58 wins.

“The ultimate goal is to get over the hump and win a district title,” Connaway said. “It’s time to get one. There’s going to be good teams in the conference, but I think the conference is wide open. One of our goals would be to win a conference title. We’re in three tournaments so we definitely want to get hardware in all three of them.”

Connaway said there should be around 18 total kids in the program after the 10 football kids join following the end of their season. Some of Van-Far’s key players also play football like leading scorer Pacey Reading, starting point guard Gaven Gaston and starting post player Evan Utterback.

Gibson Condie will be another senior returning who can rebound and shoot, and Jackson Fischer will provide a big body, a physical presence and soft touch on the court after a year away from the program.

“(Pacey’s) success is going to be based on how our other core group does,” Connaway said. “Gaven is going to be our key as he can take a lot of pressure off Pacey and be that second scorer. Hopefully, Evan can do the same on a more consistent basis. If we can get that, that will keep defenses from putting junk and doubles on Pacey.”

Connaway said juniors Kaleb Baskett and Slade Keller can also be bigger factors this season. He said Baskett has more height and has “a really good shot” while Keller hustles and can be a pesky defender. Bryce Reading is a sophomore who was raw last year, Connaway said, but should be better with more experience.

In previous years, Van-Far has looked to pressure opponents into making mistakes and score as quickly as possible. Connaway said the Indians might look different this season.

“We don’t have the quickness or speed,” Connaway said. “We still want to get and go when we can. Defensively, we’re probably going to be more of a zone team this year. We’ve got good size, length, footspeed is not our biggest thing and the zone can keep us out of foul trouble.”

Connaway said Van-Far should be about seven or eight players deep so he wants to keep players out of foul trouble. He used Pacey Reading’s foul trouble in the district title game as an example and how it forced him off the floor. He said the zone could make the Indians a better defensive rebounding team.

“I really enjoy this group,” Connaway said. “They’re going to be hungry and work hard with, in the back of their mind, what happened last year.”