STC’s Eli Keahna (44) takes a shot on Tuesday evening. The Trojans hosted Center Point Urbana, falling 50-31. News Herald Photo/Allison Graham

Much improvement was shown by the STC Varsity Boys Basketball team (0-6) on Tuesday evening. The Trojans hosted WaMaC conference opponent Center Point Urbana (3-3). They did lose to the Pointers 50-31 but the night showed much better efforts.

STC’s 6’8 junior Eli Keahna got things rolling for the Trojans. Keahna scored a bucket from the post to put the Trojans on the board. He scored again with 1:32 left in the first quarter. Keahna has the most heighth the Trojans have seen in some years. According to head coach Dustin Peska, he is fairly new to the game of basketball. He didn’t play in middle school but was on the varsity roster last year along with his brother Keith Keahna. Keith was a State winning high jumper for the Trojans who is currently on scholarship with the Iowa Hawkeyes Track and Field team. His sister, Tieranny also played ball for STC. She was on the girls team while her mom Marsha coached. The Keahna family has long been dedicated to the STC basketball program. The youngest, Curtis, has cheered on his older siblings from the student section.

Eli is very much a gentleman on the court but on Tuesday we saw a side that most were hoping he had in him. Keahna found his more aggressive side at the post. He took his defenders head on and the work paid off. He had a career high of 20 points for the Trojans.

“First thing is defense. We are getting after it defensively. We were getting stops, forcing turnovers and playing hard on the defensive side and that leads to the offensive side, the high low, getting the ball to Eli and finally seeing him become a beast going to the rim. We are going to continue to keep working with him and getting other people involved,” said Peska.

The Trojans also improved immensely in regard to defense. They played a much more aggressive game on defense forcing the Pointers into several turnovers which then led to some offensive opportunities.

STC’s Sonny DeMarce (15) takes a shot on Tuesday evening. The Trojans hosted Center Point Urbana, falling 50-31. News Herald Photo/Allison Graham

There is still work to do however. They’ve got to work on smarter and stronger passing to avoid turning the ball over themselves. Ball handling in general is something the Trojans could work to improve.

The Trojans welcomed back Lincoln Kingbird to the lineup. He was sidelined due to an injury. He was the next leading scorer for the Trojans with five points. It was his first game back so there was some hesitation to his game that will surely improve with time and confidence. Bishop Chavez was also back in the lineup after missing Friday’s game along with Javin Lasley who saw some playing time in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately senior leader, Tyrin Lasley was on the bench with an injury. Hopefully he will be able to return after the break.

“We battled. We battled until the end and we are getting better. We have to still clean up a lot of little things. But we are going to get better,” said Peska.

The Trojans will be on the road Friday evening to West Delaware for their final game of 2019.

The STC boys will return in the new year to host Vinton-Shellsburg on Friday, January 3 for Pep Band Alumni Night.