Riverhawks Look Forward to New Season

by Abbie Sweeney

Fourteen basketball players will be on the traveling team for WVU Parkersburg this season. Out of 39 students who tried out, 22 are official Riverhawk players. Seven of them are returning players from last year. "We have an excellent team this year," said returning Coach Louis Roy.

To raise money for the season's expenses, the basketball team held a concession stand at the West Virginia Interstate Fair along with the soccer and volleyball teams. Also, the team has sold candy bars at a dollar a piece. The fair generously donated to equipment and location for the concession stand.

Just like last season, the Riverhawks are a club team and are not in a official conference yet. Coach Roy hopes that next year they will be able to participate in a conference.

The junior varsity teams of colleges is mostly who the Riverhawks will be playing . However, there are some colleges, such as West Virginia Wesleyan, that the Riverhawks will play the varsity team.

For the first time, the Riverhawks are being paid to go on the road to play another team. Oakland City University is paying the team $1,500 to travel to the Indiana school for two games. The team's room expenses and food will be paid in full for two nights. For next year's season, Ashburn Kentucky has invited the Riverhawks to do the same.

On top of having better games scheduled, the team also had better practice before their first game. Last year, they only had about four practices. While this year they had at least a month before their first practice game against Washington State Community College. "We gel together better as a team," said Coach Roy.

With a score of 100-73, the Riverhawks won the game against Washington State on Oct. 25 at WVU Parkersburg. “We still have a lot to work on, but we played a good game,” said Roy.

The next game is against Washington State again on Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. at WVU Parkersburg. The first road game is Nov. 14th against Rio Grande University at Rio Grande.