IPSWICH – The Ipswich Tigers boys’ basketball team has gotten off to a strong start this season.

Through their first ten games, the Tigers have compiled a 9-1 record, and coach Stewart Bohle says it all began with team building events during the summer months.

“We have open gym twice a week and we went to three team camps,” Bohle said. “We work on a lot of fundamentals during the summer. So, a lot of team building kind of things.”

However, the team was also struck with unforeseen circumstances before the season even started.

“Going into the season we had a couple of kids that got hurt in football; Max Kulesa and Tucker Kadlec,” Bohle said. “At the time you thought, these guys are going to play some significant minutes. You’re kind of looking around thinking man we’ve got to have somebody to step up here.”

While Kulesa is out for the season, Kadlec has since returned to the court. However, Bohle said the success has come due to other players stepping up in their absence; players such as senior Xavier Kadlec and sophomore Kyle Hettich.

“Man have they stepped up,” Bohle said. “Both of them just do the little things that maybe don’t show up in the scorebook or they don’t get a lot of headlines or things like that, but (Xavier) is diving all over the floor getting loose balls and rebounding the ball, and Kyle is shooting the ball and running our offense a little bit, helping us bring the ball up against the press, so those two have been just a pleasant surprise as far as how our season has gone.”

Kulesa and Hettich have added depth to the team, which already consisted of other key players such as Trevor Heinz, Chet Peterson, and Jace Konsor.

“When Trevor walks into the gym, (the opposing team is) looking for him. When he gets on the floor, they’re doing the same thing. He’s trying to get free, and Chet and Jace have 100 percent benefitted from that,” Bohle said. “Jace is one of the purest shooters I’ve been around. If he’s left open, he doesn’t miss very often. Chet is averaging a double-double, and so the guy just works. He’s a continuous worker.”

With several potential scoring threats on the floor, the Tigers began the season bolting out to a 4-0 record before dropping their only contest to Waubay-Summit 46-39. Bohle said while it was a close contest, the Mustangs made a few more plays to come away with the win.

“Just a defensive battle and they made a couple more shots down the stretch than we did,” Bohle said.

Since then, Ipswich has won its last five games, including its most recent contest last Tuesday against Sully Buttes 68-65 (on a 3-pointer by Peterson with six seconds left), and have outscored their opponents by an average of almost 15 points per game this season. The Tigers will host North Central tonight before traveling to Faulkton on Thursday. They will then head to the Corn Palace in Mitchell on Saturday where they will tangle with Gregory in the Hanson Classic.

The Tigers have hung their hat on their defense, and Bohle said the squad will need to continue being aggressive in that regard, as well as play team basketball. He also noted that his team must take a ‘one game at a time’ approach during the remainder of the season to get to where they want to be.

“Our schedule doesn’t do us any favors the next 10 games, so we’re going to have to play solid, we’re going to have to play smart,” Bohle said. “If we keep playing defense and shooting the ball the way we have, I’m hoping that we’ll like where we’ll finish.”