Huskies try to find all the right pieces

BOYS PREP BASKETBALL: NEW HAMPTON 61, NASHUA-PLAINFIELD 31

Huskies try to find all the right pieces

Through trial and tribulation, N-P still finds some success

It’s been a trying couple of weeks for the boys basketball team down in Nashua-Plainfi eld. The 30-point loss to New Hampton on Monday night didn’t help matters much, but the outlook on the season hasn’t been overshadowed.

Just four games into the season, the Huskies have felt the pain of an overtime loss and full power of physical teams like Lake Mills, Northwood-Kensett and now New Hampton.

But there’s a light at the end of this tunnel the Huskies have found themselves in.

“We still got 17 games to go. If we start folding and quitting right now, we’ll be in for a very long season,” said head coach Justin Eiffler. “We always trend to start slow, and we always manage to figure it out and compete in a lot of games.

“And we’ll do so moving forward from here.”

The trend of starting off behind continued for Nashua-Plainfield on Monday night. A lackluster offense was able to only find 11 points in the first half.

Part of the issue, Eiffler said, is communication.

“Our biggest problem is we don’t talk. We need to be vocal defensively,” Eiffler said. “Once we start doing that, hopefully things will turn around for us.”

The problem with curing the communication malaise, however, is figuring out how to diagnose it. Eiffler said he’ll hopefully have a plan on how to get the Huskies to liven up on the court a little more by their next game.

Eiffler said one thing that hasn’t been an issue for the Huskies this season is players’ effort levels, even when found in a decent sized deficit late in games.

“There were spurts where we did fight hard,” Eiffler said. “We didn’t fold; we still had guys in there battling. I’m happy to see that. We’ve just got to drive from the get-go.”

Eiffler said early-game deficits by 10-plus points have hindered the team the season. Playing from behind by four points or less is a dramatic difference than playing from behind by 15 or more points.

With a new mental training program going on in the Nashua-Plainfield locker rooms — a program that both Eiffler and girls’ head coach Erik Smith are taking part in — rebounding will hopefully come easier and sooner rather than later.

There isn’t much breathing room to get things done, either, with a relentless schedule of basketball coming up.

The Huskies bounce back 24 hours later and are on the road at Newman-Catholic tonight.

Then they’ll try to regroup during a couple off days.

Nashua-Plainfield comes back to host Central Springs on Friday night starting at 7:30 p.m.

By Stephen Koenigsfeld sports@charlescitypress.com