The girls varsity basketball team needed some extra help to prepare them for their matchup at Parkway North. To help them prepare, a team of  senior J-League basketball players scrimmaged the girls to give them a challange.

“This benefits the team because it helps our players work with kids with a different athletic ability,” assistant coach Nancy Hesseman said. “It will mirror Parkway North a little bit since they are an athletic team.”

Although J-League teams are generally just recreational teams who primarily focus on having fun, this wasn’t the case at all in their scrimmages.

“They were really good athletes and extremely competitive,” senior Zoë Wallis said. “They didn’t take it easy on us and never let us and never let us win or anything like that.”

Many of these athletes played on the football team this fall that made it to the Edward Jones Dome. The athleticism that some of these players have, including Notre Dame bound Jonathan Bonner, translate well in mirroring an athletic Parkway North team.

“We are all really impressed by how high they could jump and how fast they could run, which was much more than our typical competition” Wallis said.

The team composed of all seniors at Central understand why they are at the girls’ practice, but they also like having a little bit of fun while they play.

“It’s a really fun time playing basketball,” senior Drew Grossman said. “And we are also helping the girls.”