The Sartell boys basketball team has been rolling lately and have a chance to make a splash in the playoffs. They are currently 12-3 as of January 27, 2022. The success has been mostly to the senior captain’s Mason Lund, Evan Templin, and Logan Clark but the unfound heroes have been the bench who have been supporting and cheering all season.

The bench being referred to is the JV squad that sits on varsity. As a JV team, they are about .500 with a 7-8 record led by guard Gavan Schulte who plays two halves JV and one-half varsity and averages 8.93 ppg. Other key contributors include the leading scorer on the team Andrew Rogers who is averaging 11.48 ppg, Dylan Simones who is averaging 6.47 ppg but is a menace on defense, and Eddie Durrwatcher who is the only sophomore on the team.

Other players include Tyler Hemmecsh, Logan Legatt, Cole Hentges, Brady Husmann, Kelechi Nwachukwu, and Will Mahowald. These guys usually play teams hard and are looking to turn it around in the second half for the season, but what they have been successful in this season is cheering for the varsity team.

Will Mahowald says ” Our team hasn’t won as many games as we did in the past few years, but I do like that we play better competition.”

They are two main cheers the bench does to try to hype up the team. One of them comes off of other team’s turnovers out of bounds. Once the ball goes out and it signals our ball the bench boys yell “That Way” to show the other team that they turned it over. The other one comes off of Logan Clark’s free throws. He wears goggles while he plays so the bench people make goggles out of our hands while he shoots free throws.

Will Mahowald adds, “The goggles is one of my favorites because the whole bench does it and it looks sick.”

When you look on the bench during the varsity game you usually see everyone cheering, clapping, or laughing constantly. The main guy you will be finding doing all of this is Will Mahowald.

Will Mahowald is a post for the Sartell Sabres. He is currently averaging 9.87 ppg, which is the second-highest on the team. Mahowald loves to play basketball, but he has gone on record saying that he looks forward to cheering on the sabres. Before the varsity game, he said that “Sometimes I look forward to cheering for the varsity games rather than playing in ours.”

The team has its chants, Mahowald has his own. Sometimes during the game he will yell out “LET’S GO SABRES” to hype up the bench, players, and crowd.

(He isn’t yelling in the video because his voice was tired after the game)