Renton High’s girls basketball open gym takes place every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after school at 3:30 pm.

Open gym is used for girls to practice everything they need to work on to become stronger, before the actual season starts–whether is just shooting, dribbling, or scrimmaging against each other.

The basketball program is coached by Timothy White, who is the varsity coach, and Earl Cheatham, who is junior varsity coach.

The girls’ JV coach, also known as the school security officer, Mr. Cheatham is the person who opens up the gym three days a week for girls that are a part of the basketball team.

Last year during basketball season, both the varsity and JV teams went undefeated in league.  There were also other schools Renton played that were not in the school’s league. These are schools more challenging than schools they have played before in the years prior. Playing these schools are good for both the JV and varsity teams to help them become stronger and help them work better as a team.

“It’s not easy playing against these schools, but we are capable of doing anything we put our minds to, and our minds are set on winning,” said one the varsity girls.

“Last season was a good season for us. So hopefully this season is just as good,” said another varsity player.

The state usually controls who each school plays, so sometimes teams play a school once or twice. If the school is in the league, teams will play them twice: once at their school for an away game and the second time as a home game.

In basketball, the way the scoring works is as follows:

• If a player scores a layup, that is automatically 2 points on the board
• To add three points on the board, the player has to shoot the ball from an outlined circle around the hoop
• If a player gets fouled and goes to the free throw line, the player gets two shots or three shot depending on the foul
• Free shots are each worth 1 point

The rules that apply in basketball are as follows:

• Players cannot push one another
• Players cannot pull on the other team’s jerseys
• Players cannot talk trash to the other team or the referees
• The most important rule in any sport is to have good sportsmanship

According to most coaches, players need at least 10 practices before they can play in their first game. It is like this because they need to make sure that players are physically and mentally ready to go when it is game time.