A group of Seniors have been making some noise at Riverside Brookfield High School after they started promoting their Rec League Basketball team on Instagram a few weeks ago. Dante Fuentes, Grant Gallier, Max Robles, TJ Sloan, Liam Stack, Aiden Verdin and Marc Zoppi joined the Downers Grove Rec Basketball as Los Doughboys, soon after the teams formation in December they started promoting themselves on Instagram. RB students have found amusement in the team’s updates, leading to their Instagram having a relatively large following.

Zoppi, who also goes by “Munk,” “Smunk,” “Bunk,” “Shmeek,” and “Shmeeky Meek,” describes himself as the GM (General Manager) of the team. Zoppi was responsible for forming the team as well as picking a name, he settled on Los Doughboys after drawing inspiration from a chain depicting the Pillsbury Doughboy which he purchased in November. The team started getting together in December, as Zoppi reached out to some friends who he knew enjoyed playing basketball in their free time. Zoppi, along with Gallier first joined the league last year, signing up to join a team in need of a few extra players.

“It was awful, we lost every single game by like 50, we [Grant and I] were the best players on the team to give you some perspective so obviously it didn’t go so well,” Zoppi said.

Fuentes, Stack and Sloan have clearly been Los Doughboys best players through the first three games of the season; Sloan is averaging 15.6 point per game while Fuentes and Stack each average 11.3. All three of these players were members of the RB basketball team in the past, despite this experience, they don’t brand the rec league competition easy.

“There’s a lot of ex-varsity, football and baseball players, there’s definitely a lot of athletes there,” Sloan said, Stack added, “The level of competition is honestly not too far off [from high school basketball].”

The rec league season will conclude in a double elimination tournament, which Los Doughboys are determined to win. The team has gotten off to an unfortunate start to their season, losing each of their first three games. Despite their putrid 0-3 record, Zoppi believes Los Doughboys are one of the better teams in the league.

“We got pretty unlucky with the seeding, we’ve played the first, second and fourth seed,” Zoppi said.

Some Doughboys players have pointed to their lack of manpower as the main reason for the early-season struggles. Having just seven players leaves the team susceptible to fatigue, especially when some players get into foul trouble. Robles caught some flack from Sloan for his high amount of fouls in the teams first three games.

“Maxro is just in the wrong sport right now, he’s in the football mindset, he needs to stop tackling other players,” Sloan said.

Zoppi on the other hand defended Robles, citing his heightened effort level as the cause of his early-season foul troubles.

“You know, I like the passion, he’s very passionate about what he does!” Zoppi said.

Los Doughboys will look to change their fortunes in their fourth league game on Thursday, February 3rd. Zoppi, who will miss the game due to an orchestra concert, even went as far as to guarantee a win. 

“[Tonight] should be a free win because we’re playing an underclassmen team,” Zoppi said.