The line of cars up James Madison Drive. The rowdy, obnoxiously loud rap music blaring out of rolled down windows, despite the cold weather. Fans flood through the gym doors, student-passes in one hand and a fathead of the captain’s face in the other. Friday nights in the winter are reserved for Madison Basketball and of course the following celebratory victory tweets.

The Madison Varsity boys basketball team excelled during the regular season in 2015-2016. They finished with an 18 and four record, winning 81 percent of all their games. For an eleven-game stretch the team went undefeated.

The streak was broken during post-season , unfortunately not an unfamiliar feeling for the Madison Boys Basketball team, which has faced difficulty when it comes to advancing past District play in the past.

“I was pretty disappointed, I thought we had a good chance to go farther than that,” Sam Kidd (’17) said.

The second-seeded Warhawks dropped their first game in District Playoffs to seventh-seeded Hayfield.

“It was kind of rough. We were doing so well during the season and to have it end so abruptly and as an upset was unfortunate,” Point Guard Johnny Corish (’17) said.

Daniel Gerke (’17), a three-year veteran of the program agrees with Corish about the surprising season-ending loss.

“We were all pretty disappointed. We thought our body of work during the regular season didn’t really show,” Gerke said.

Regardless of their early exit of the district tournament, the team’s winning

record made the season stand out, and players are looking forward to improving on their success and bringing even more to the court this coming season.

“When [the season] ended, it was kind of heartbreaking because the team was really close, and thinking about the seniors leaving obviously was a sad thought,” Riley Jorgenson (’17) said. “Overall, I was happy with the season we had. We had a really successful season and we were such a close knit family.”

Filling the shoes of the graduated seniors can seem daunting, but Gerke said the boys plan to embrace the challenge and have their sights set higher than last year.

“[My goal is to] step up and play a bigger role; we lost a lot of seniors last year so a bunch of us seniors this year [need to] do what they did last year … take on the leadership role,” Gerke said.

The first official game is only two weeks away, the annual season tip-off against Oakton, and the team has trained aiming to redeem themselves from last year’s District loss. One of the team’s biggest goals is to qualify for the regional tournament, something that has not happened at Madison since 2008.

“We’ve always made [it] our goal to make [it to] regional tournament because since Coach Roller [Kevin Roller] has been at Madison we have not been able to go to regionals for basketball,” Nick Conforti (’17) said.

The seniors are ready to leave their mark on this season.

“Our team goals are to beat everyone in the regular season and get into the postseason and definitely win our first playoff game. Then we’ll make a run,” Kidd said.