Recruiting Report: Blake Charles (2018)
White Bear Lake forward Blake Charles is coming off an 11 point per game season as a junior and is now hoping to push the Bears to a strong year.
“Almost all of our returning guys have varsity experience so that should help us,” Charles said. “I think that we have a strong starting lineup and a bench that is going to make it difficult for teams to keep up with. We have most starters from last year returning and I believe we are going to have a much better season this year.”
Charles, Sam Schwartz, and Jeremy Beckler are all back after double figure scoring seasons plus a lot of the reserve players return as well.
“As a team I feel like we have the ability to have a very good regular season record but also be able to be very successful in the playoffs also,” Blake said.
“As an individual I have goals for myself to make a greater impact to my team and do better than I did last year. I believe that my skill has grown and I am more capable of helping my team be successful.”
Charles did not play during the 17u season but he did spend a lot of time working on skills and his strength for both football and basketball season plus he played a lot with his high school team.
“This offseason I did a lot of training but I did not play AAU this year sadly,” Blake said. “We played fall league with my high school team. I also play football so I did a lot of strength training and agility work over this off season.
“I thought I had a pretty successful junior season. The wins and losses may have went the way I wanted it to but I felt that I made improvement in my game through the year.”
What did Charles work on specifically to improve?
“I think what I have really focused on this off season is ball handling and strength. I would go in the gym and work ball handling drills. I felt like if I had strong ball handing it would improve my game and make it easier to play.
“With strength I would go to the gym most days in the off season and we have our programs made and It has made me a stronger player. With the ability to jump higher and play stronger it has helped in basketball too.”
At 6-foot-5 Charles is likely to have a career in football.
“I have only talked to a couple schools mostly for football. But I recently went to look at St. John’s for football and plan to look at others soon.”