Last season, head coach Andy Stephens incorporated something new into the plan for the Parkland boys basketball team. To go along with the strength and conditioning agenda, he put his team learn under the tutelage of former Central Catholic and Penn State football player Mike Cerimele, who runs STACK Velocity Sports Performance training center.

“I brought Mike [Cerimele] in to help us get stronger,” said Stephens, who is also a Central Catholic graduate. “I think that we have a talented team, but I think we could get stronger to play with some of the more physical teams that we will see. Mike did a great job with us last year.”

The Trojans look to build on their successful 2014-15 season. To be specific, they hope for three more postseason wins, which would result in one more title. Last season they finished 28-2 and won the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11 Class AAAA championships. While the second round of the state tournament has seen the end of Parkland’s season the past few years, this year the Trojans feel like they have a shot to go all the way.

Parkland reached the 2004 state title game and fell to Penn Hills. This season could be the Trojans’ best chance to get back to the championship.

Parkland lost only two seniors, Kevin Delourie and Justin Jones, both of whom came off of the bench last season. The Trojans return all five starters, including seniors Devante Cross, Jack Dreisbach, Kyle Stout and Kenny Yeboah, and junior Sam Iorio.

“Our goal, as always, is to win championships,” said Stephens. “And this year is no different. A lot of the guys that brought us those titles are back this year, and there are some younger guys that have stepped up for us and shown us they can contribute.”

One of those players is junior Michael Zeky, who won the sixth man award at the Stellar tournament during the summer. Fellow juniors Zach Bross and Will Baar, and sophomore Jake Bartholomew will also see time on the court this year for Parkland.

With the high goals and expectations, and hype surrounding this Trojans once again this year, Stephens wants his team to prepared for the teams it could face in March. So the nonconference schedule will help out with that matter as Parkland has games scheduled against Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic, Archbishop Carroll and George Washington.

“We have a real tough nonleague schedule to help prepare us for a long season and the end goals we want to reach,” Stephens said. “We had a great off season in which we got much stronger, which will hopefully help us against the more physical teams. I am excited to see what we can do this year.”