Bloomfield hoops working toward next step under Sindle

Second-year Bloomfield High School varsity boys basketball coach Ben Sindle tends to Wildcat senior guard Caleb Upchurch after he injured his ankle in a recent scrimmage at Puxico High School.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

PUXICO – Ben Sindle has been guiding the Bloomfield High School varsity boys basketball program for 12 months, but the roller-coaster ride that he and his Wildcat athletes have endured may make it seem longer.

“We have accountability,” Sindle said of how his program has grown over the past year. “Our guys work a lot harder than what they did.”

That hard work paid off last winter, as there were several positive achievements by the Bloomfield program.

The Wildcats hadn’t won more than eight games in six years, and they battled to 11 wins last season, including victories over a 12-win Meadow Heights squad, Bernie (twice), Dexter, a 10-win Clearwater team, a 12-win Oran group, and they took a 14-win Leopold team into triple overtime before falling.

A short-handed Bloomfield group tested itself recently against Puxico, which is coming off a 23-win season and proved to be one of the area’s dominant programs. The Indians comfortably took care of the Wildcats in that scrimmage, but that didn’t temper Sindle’s enthusiasm for where his program is heading.

“We didn’t have all of our guys here,” Sindle said. It has been hit-and-miss this summer. But I am excited about when school starts (next month) and we have all of our guys together.”

The Wildcats graduated Ayden Hutchison and Lucas Dowdy but return five seniors in Matthew Sanders, Caleb Upchurch, Law Graser, Kayden Craft, and Cole Hartlein.

“The one thing that this team has is an ability to be more intense on defense,” Sindle said. “Losing Lucas Dowdy hurts. He was a rebounding machine. He was an animal. But as far as our intensity level, our energy level on defense, I think that is going to be ramped up.”

As far as motivation goes, Sindle hasn’t had to come up with much. He can simply point to the Wildcats’ last game, which was a stunning 65-63 loss to a six-win Advance team, which Bloomfield had beaten by 29 points in December.

“There is definitely a sense of unfinished business,” Sindle said. “We worked our tails off all year and then to have that (ending). We do have a sour taste. I don’t let them forget about it, at all.”

In fairness to the Hornets, they were playing their best basketball of the winter at that point and closed their season by winning three of their final four games. However, Advance has ended Bloomfield’s season three consecutive years.

“We keep harping on them,” Sindle explained, “that they did all of these things, but it doesn’t matter until you get over that hump.”