ALMA (KFSM)--Stan Flenor and Alma basketball were riding high at 12-1. Then the Airedales ran into an undefeated opponent. The flu.
"It got us two Fridays ago (January 14) and you know, it set us back a little bit physically and we’re still trying to overcome it," Flenor recapped.
"We had four starters, one off the bench their all sick," junior Taelon Peter said. "We just found out right before the game actually."
As a result, Alma suffered two straight losses (70-57 at Russellville, 80-73 vs Greenbrier), before bouncing back on Tuesday with a win over Greenwood.
"It was very important," said Peter. "I think we needed that to move on and be able to take the loss and handle it and come back and win. It was a good experience for our team."
Flenor agreed, "It’s really kind of the first time this season that we’ve faced that type of adversity."
"We have a target on our back and so we got that off, got the losses out and now we can just come back harder," junior Cejay Mann added."
"We’re still pretty young," said Flenor. "We’re juniors and a couple seniors and just a team that can really score."
"We’ve been shooting the ball really well actually and we’ve been scoring and running our plays offensively really well," said Peter.
Flenor has led past Airedales teams to the 2005 and 2011 state championships. With a young team gaining experience every night, expect Alma to contend over at least the next two seasons.