The Van-Far boys have played well over .500 basketball this summer but want to be more consistent.

Head coach Pat Connaway said the Indians played several games in six shootouts this summer, compiling a 16-7 record. After seeing his team play games at Monroe City, Harrisburg, Higbee, Stover, Warrensburg and Westran, he said they had a positive June overall and likes the team chemistry shown by his team full of freshman and five upperclassmen.

“We have good team chemistry, especially with the varsity group,” Connaway said. “We’re still pretty young. We basically got four juniors and the rest are freshmen that make up our team of our 12 kids. We got one kid that’s going to be a senior. There’s no animosity. Nikos (Connaway) has been our leading scorer the last two years, but nobody cares who scores and they move the ball well. They get along on and off the floor.”

Connaway acknowledges that Van-Far has aspects to work on as a young team like tempo — as the Indians are a team that likes to play fast — and the mental aspect. There were times this summer the mental game seemed strong and others where it needed some work.

At the camp Van-Far attended in Warrensburg, there was a competition held in two-minute fourth-quarter situations where one team started with a one-point lead but the other started with the ball. The Class 2 Indians competed against several bigger schools including Parkway West (Class 6), North County (Class 5), Jefferson (Class 3), Blue Springs (Class 6) and Hillsboro (Class 5). Van-Far finished third, playing Crest Ridge and Hale in the smaller schools pool before facing Class 4 Aurora, North County, Class 4 Lutheran St. Charles and Class 4 Lafayette’s junior varsity.

“You’re only playing these big schools for two minutes at a time, but we held our own for the short period,” Connaway said. “During that time, I think we had three or four buzzer beaters either to send it into overtime or to win a game. It was exciting for the kids.”

At Westran, Van-Far played Cairo, Paris and the host Hornets. Connaway recalls his players being excited to face Cairo once again after defeating the Class 2 seventh-ranked team 58-55 in the district semifinals before losing the championship to Clopton 58-48 to finish with a 10-17 record. To prove last year’s district semifinal result wasn’t a fluke, Connaway said the Indians played “extremely well.”

Connaway said the next game against Paris was a victory but wasn’t the same level of play for the Indians.

“We were awful,” Connaway said. “It wasn’t the same team, and that’s part of the mental toughness we’re trying to get them to realize. Sometimes, we don’t bring our ‘A’ game. You want to be good, you have to show up and play. You can’t just take things for granted.”

Connaway said Van-Far will maybe get a couple more games in Stover in July, but if they are done, he is happy with what he saw this summer.

“We got a wide variety of teams this summer to play,” Connaway said. “A lot of it was teams we may or may not see during the course of the year. That’s why we go down to the Lake (of the Ozarks), to Stover, down in Warrensburg, Springfield, St. Louis and places like that with teams we’re not going to see in conference or anything.”