The Patagonia Lobos High School Boys Basketball team had a successful season, finishing in the elite eight for the entire state in the 1A division.
Patagonia was competing against schools that had student bodies two to three times the size of Patagonia, “which made their success even more remarkable,” said head coach Nate Porter. In their last game of the season the Lobos lost to Fort Thomas, who went on to become the state champions.
This was Porter’s first year as head coach. He received a lot of support from previous coach Kenny Hayes and his Assistant Coach Terrell Harper, the P.E. teacher from Elgin School.
The team is an “amazing group of young men, who learned and grew as the season went. It was a joy to watch,” said Porter. “The athletes struggled in the start of the season to finish their games but overcame that weakness by the playoffs,” said Porter.
Many of the team members are juniors or younger and are expected to return next year. Porter hopes to be head coach again.
For a majority of the games the team had to be on the road, leading to a closeness between the team and its coaches. Porter said “l found them to be very trustworthy, very open to growing and learning, not just to be better athletes but to be better young men.” The 2019-2020 basketball team members are: Sebastian Vasquez, Kurt Whitcoe, Dylan Jacob, Gabe Wilson, Ivan Carranz, Santiny Aguilar, Julian Vasquez, Lalo Aguilar, Isaias Gonzalez, Russell Sherman, Oskar Gomez, Isaiah Ruiz, Alex Santos and Damian Castro.