Both the freshmen boys and girls basketball teams have gained new coaches for this season. Mill Creek Middle School social studies teacher Ryan Robie is the new freshman boys B-team coach and English teacher Michael Strack is coaching the freshman girls.

Previously, Strack coached women’s basketball at Bethany College, freshman boys’ basketball at Salina Central High School. He has also coached baseball and has coached football for the last 10 years.

Robie has been the head 7th grade boys basketball coach at Mill Creek since 2007. Before that, he coached high school soccer for five years.

Robie said he is looking forward to working with more experienced players and preparing them for higher levels of competition.

“I’m excited to work with higher-caliber players, kids who have just a higher level of playing,” Robie said. “We demand and expect [the players] to do the little things right. Effort is the one thing we preach to them that they control.”

Freshman basketball player Brennan Teasley said Robie is very helpful in improving those “little things.”

“He doesn’t really get angry with us but if we mess up he’ll show what we did wrong, so it’s really helpful,” Teasley said.

Strack and Robie both said that the main goal of the freshman team is continuous improvement.

“Being the freshman coach, our main thing is getting better every single day,” Strack said. “We want to win every game, but we want to get better everyday.”

“[My goal] is to make each kid better,” Robie said. “I think that’s the freshman team’s goal, is to make kids better … kind of laying the foundation for what is expected of them.”