From The Sun's Stefen Lovelace:

The first day of practice for winter sports began yesterday, and the start of a season always brings a lot of questions for a team.

How good will we be? Will the new guys be able to contribute quickly enough? Will we accomplish all the goals we set?

Senior Jeff Braun believes the Winters Mill basketball team will have the right answers to those questions and be one of the best teams in Carroll County.

"We'll be good this year," Braun said. "Our team is just huge this year. We have a few guys that are 6-6 and 6-7. One of the guys is a D-1 player and the other is really good, too."

The Falcons have had a basketball program for only five years but have already reached a state final four (2006).

Braun is known for his success on the football field. He has accepted a football scholarship from West Virginia, and he'll play on the basketball team this year to help with his speed and agility going into next season. This will be Braun's first year playing high school basketball and he'll add to the outstanding size in the frontcourt at 6 feet 5, 320 pounds.

To beat the Falcons this year, teams may want to focus on the perimeter game.