Staff photo / Brian Yauger Chalker sophomore Colton Levensky, left, tries to get around the defense of Bloomfield’s Nevaeh Doll.

SOUTHINGTON — For Chalker, the 2024-25 season has been a bit of a struggle with the team still finding its place.

As the season winds down, the Wildcats got a league win by taking down Bloomfield, 44-29, on Friday at Chalker High School.

“We’ve been up and down,” Chalker coach Mike Karr said. “The biggest thing we struggle with is that we struggle to score. We have a mix of youth and we have some seniors, but we don’t have a ton of varsity experience, so that really kind of hurt us this year. We’ve tried to really mix it up this year, so hopefully it’s beneficial going down the road.”

Chalker spread the ball around on Friday with 13 players registering points. Asher Wise led the way with 11 points.

While not a big team, the Wildcats capitalized on the boards, controlling the opportunity to get those second and third chances.

“It’s huge,” Karr said of getting rebounds. “It’s probably been our focus all year. We’re not extremely big. We’re pretty guard-oriented, so we try to make sure we get the fundamentals right.”

Bloomfield had a pair of players score a game-high 12 points. Both Holden Gwinn and Colton Merlino each reached the mark.

The Cardinals played Friday’s game with just five players in the lineup. The starting five were the only ones that saw the court throughout the contest.

It’s not easy, but Bloomfield coach Joe Abramovich has kept the kids engaged through a tough season.

“We started with eight and whittled our way down to six (kids),” Abramovich said. “We had a kid out of town tonight, but it’s just keeping the energy up in the gym, keeping them excited and keeping them wanting to come so they can see the fruits of their labor come to fruition on the court.”

Bloomfield ends its regular season against the Bristol junior varsity squad and Agape Christian Academy.

The Wildcats close the regular season out against Maplewood on Friday.

With the tournament approaching, Chalker wants to be a tricky team that could take advantage of some team just looking at their record.

“Our biggest thing is turnovers. We want to be able to take care of the ball a little better,” Karr said. “That’s been kind of our (Achilles) heel all year. We had an outstanding game against Mathews (a 43-42 defeat), where we took them to overtime. If we can duplicate that, we’ve got a chance to try and steal one in the tournament.”