The middle school years are a lot of fun for students. They slowly begin to gain more freedom in school so that they can get a little taste of the high school life. Also, once they leave the elementary school, students can become student-athletes and play scholastically for their school.

At Northwestern Lehigh Middle School, there were a lot of young student-athletes growing and blossoming out on the hardwood this winter.

The B team of the Tigers' middle school squad includes seventh graders who are fresh on the scholastic sports scene and working on building up their basketball skills.

Behind head coach Dan Lundberg, this squad finished with an 8-5 record.

"They definitely improved. From the beginning to the end they all improved in multiple aspects of the game," Lundberg said. "They also all worked well together."

Lundberg made it a point to spread the playing time around so that every player on his roster made an impact every game. However, he did have six players that rotated and started regularly and they were: Reuben Kemmerer, Austin Trumbauer, Tyler Wiik, Brian Garbacik and Kenny Gawelko.

Assisting those starters were a few key bench players in Andrew White, Trevor Schreiner, and Mason Vogwill.

The team opened the season 4-0 before enduring what Lundberg described as "ups and downs that we bounced back from."

This group of young ballers was resilient all year long as they never got discouraged by bumps in the road. A great example of that optimism was their game against Moravian Academy where the Tigers were leading and suddenly found themselves in a deficit in the fourth quarter. The team fought back and earned a thrilling overtime victory that evening.

The rest of the B team roster includes Shaun Colter, Colin DeLong, Kevin Slack, Joshua Dietrich, Lucas Summers and Ryan Yeager.

After spending a season with this group, Lundberg is confident they all potentially can be players in Northwestern's program.

"These guys absolutely can play here as they get older," he sadi. "I think they will get better and better as they play together in the offseason for next year and from there on up."

The coach believes in them, the players have the motivation and Northwestern basketball fans will have the pleasure of watching them develop in to star student-athletes.