St. Louis Independent Boy's basketball teams - Confluence and Lift for Life Academies

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While I have been focused on boys' basketball conferences, there are some independent schools in St. Louis that need some analysis.  Today's analysis looks at two very good charter schools in the downtown area, Confluence Preparatory Academy, a couple of blocks north of St. Louis City Hall, and Lift for Life Academy Charter on Broadway just south of Busch Stadium.  

Both schools have great boys basketball programs and Lift for Life has an equally good girls program.  Brian Karvinen has been coaching Confluence since about 2016 and is an intense but caring coach who lives and dies with his players.  For some of these city kids, Brian is not only a head coach, but sometimes a father figure, counselor, chauffeur, dietician, clothier, and life coach.  Before Karvinen joined the staff at Confluence, not too many people even knew that Confluence had a boy's basketball team.  Brian has put them on the map.

Brian does not get the best players in St. Louis.  A lot of great players opt for Vashon, as St. Louis City middle-schoolers can pick any public or charter school in the city.  Brian gets some great players too but not the D-1 potential players that the Wolverines get.  And he can't get the transfers from Suburban North schools that Vashon gets.  But even then, Brian does a great job of pulling together excellent teams, and this year's team will be no exception.



The other independent team I wanted to highlight is Lift for Life Academy who looked dead in the water in the middle of January last year but came on strong to win their class three district and take on highly rated and eventual class three state champion Hartsville and a very good, eventual third-place team in Summit Christian Academy.  Neither of those games was close but it gave the returnees a taste of the big time and they are anxious to get back for another shot.

The girls team went on a similar tear, finishing with eight straight victories and their first state championship.  I wrote about their journey last spring.  The boy's almost made a dual championship but couldn't quite get past the mighty Hartsville squad.

The boy's team has had the St. Louis Blazers as a feeder team to Lift for Life for the past few years and has an outstanding coaching staff starting with head coach Torrey Davie, assistant Lamont Lane, JV coach Dan Stamborski, assistant JV and frosh coach, Jose Jackson, and freshman coach Harold Graves.  It will be interesting to see how far both the boy's and girl's teams go this winter.  Is a dual state championship around the corner? 


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