Turn on ESPN 2 at 5PM on Sunday and you see a Storm team playing against Team Sizzle. Storm is a club team with a collection of players from Lake Norman Christian School in Huntersville, North Carolina.
“What a blessing and opportunity to play together. The experience was great for us. There was a lot of energy and excitement in the gym,” Head Coach Mason Padgett said.
What a leap this team has made, it is a great story a unique situation as their entire roster is of new faces, the most notable of the new faces being Top 5 sophomore Mikey Williams.
Outside of Williams, this Storm team is not made of up large contingent of known names. The rest of the starting line up around Williams has less than ten offers combined. However, when you watch this team play, you realize that will change soon. You see Mikey is a Trojan horse of sorts for this roster, he will bring the attention to the table, but the table will be set for the rest of the guys to eat.
“The trip made us stronger and helped us get battle tested for the long haul this season. All the players bought in. We played together and saw adversity together, as a team,” Padgett said.
The Top Flight Division of the Border League brought together eight of the top players and club teams around the country. ESPN and Baller TV were on board to bring you the action, the stands were filled with fans and the sidelines/baselines had media and videographers lined up. It was an experience many of these players had not been a part of before.
After his opening game of 20 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists on 8-13 field goals, sophomore Trey Green said, “When I walked in the gym in front of all those fans I had some butterflies and some chills, but as soon as that ball goes up that all goes away and all eyes are on you.”
Of course it does not matter much getting invited to the dance, the story is told with how you dance when you are on the floor. Storm finished 1-2 in the event, but they left a great impression on all watching.
Storm started the weekend on Friday night playing against LV Orange, a team mostly made up of players from Top 10 pre-season ranked Bishop Gorman, out of Las Vegas, Nevada. They played with UCLA commit Will McClendon, UNLV commit Zaon Collins as well as a host of other Division 1 prospects.
Behind Green’s 20 points performance, Storm lost the game 61-60. This game opened many people’s eyes as few knew what to expect. But taking a team such as LV Orange to the wire, respect was earned for the job Mason Padgett has done with this team.
Walking out for the second game against Tri-Star, Storm had a following. They had the player everyone wanted to see, Mikey Williams, and they played in one of the more exciting games on day 1 of the event.
Junior forward Shane Fernald said, “It’s crazy, I’ve never had so many people I didn’t know at one of my games. It’s a good experience because I want to play at the next level and this gives me all the feelings of a next level event.”
It is also deemed a successful trip because they played on a national stage, and they performed. All eyes on the Storm and they stepped up to the plate to perform with the nation’s best.
Sophomore Trey Green said, “The experience has been unforgettable, the hype after us doing something big then the crowd going crazy, this is definitely the atmosphere every high school player dreams of playing in front of.”
Storm finished the weekend against a Chet Holmgren led Team Sizzle in the nationally televised game om ESPN 2. With Paul Biancardi on the call, Storm took a 30-28 score into halftime. Mikey Williams went for 25 in the 71-60 loss, while 6’9” 2022 Joyful Hawkins finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds and Jonathan Kurtas had 9 Points, 8 Rebounds and 6 Blocks.
“Of course, we would all like to win a championship, but my expectations are to grow together, learn together and get a little bit better each day. If we do that, the winning will take care of itself,” Padgett finished off with.
In all, it was a good weekend for the Storm program. They answered a lot of questions about their team and they also got the early season jitters out of the way. What can we expect moving forward, things will be exciting.
