Isiah Stokley and his fellow Pioneers teammates didn’t have the kind of basketball season start they intend-ed to have, but they determined to change things up as they get ready for a better year. “The beginning of the season we started sluggish but now we are starting to pick it up,” he mentions. “We faced adversity with injuries and losing to teams that we could’ve beaten. Now we are start-ing to turn the corner with the new offense store end. I’m getting back into the groove of things. I set a lot of high expectations for myself and and then frustrated when I wasn’t meeting those expectations but now things are coming along.”

Although Stokley hasn’t person-ally meet his goals, he does men-tion how he likes how his team has grown together to become one unit. Knowing that he can be better at his game, Stokley is motivated to keep working on his faults so that he can contribute more to his team and help them win because to him “that’s what great players do.” But he isn’t

trying to set any more new expec-tations on himself. Instead, his 2015 basketball New Year’s resolution is to take things game by game and focus on things one day at a time.

Out of a scale from one to 10, Stok-ley currently rates his game at a seven because of his mediocre start, but is looking to finish up the season closer to a 10. And instead of focusing on his own stats right now, he is more focused on helping his team win a championship. “The stats will take care of themselves at the end,” he declares.

Right now he’s making sure to put in a lot of practice when it comes to making shots and executing plays. “I’m just learning to take my time more and find players that are open,” the guard says. And as he manages to get one step closer to that cham-pionship prize with every game he plays, Stokley is just giving the game his all in hopes that it will be enough to get his team the big W. His best game this season was against Frank-

lin Pierce because they beat them by 16 points in the first half and they are one of the top ranked teams in the country. But he had another solid game against Southern Connecticut State, which is another top team in the nation, with Stokley admitting that his game was on point against a No. 2 ranked team.

Now he’s looking forward to beating Bridgeport because they are the con-ference champions and Dowling be-cause his team has yet to beat them. He also added that that he can’t wait to go up against St. Thomas Aquanis because he wants to shut them out since they knocked the Pioneers out of the playoffs last year.

As Stokley channels all his energy and focus in helping his team win and make it to the championships, he’s also keeping an eye out for NBA scouts. “If I can manage to be consis-tent with my shot then I can go far with my career. I know I will have to play point guard at the next level so I am working on that, too.”

Isiah Stokley And his fellow Pioneers teammates