Recruiting Report: Akiel Aries (2018)
Six-foot-5 forward Akiel Aries of Mountain Vista is coming off an injury that cost him his junior season but is ready for his senior year after a great summer.
“During the off-season I played AAU with Colorado Chaos, did a lot of individual skill work like shooting, ball handling, and conditioning,” Akiel said. “For high school ball in June we went to the Northern Colorado and Denver University team camps.
My junior year didn’t go as planned I fractured my ankle in December and didn’t get to play.”
Since getting healthy Aries has focused on becoming a defensive player and he’s spent a lot of time in the weight room.
“My biggest focus since last season has been defense,” Aries said. “As a team we haven’t been very good in help defense so that’s been a main focus for me. Another has been getting stronger, more explosive and making my first step quicker.”
Mountain Vista is led by Connor Staib, RJ Wohlleber, and Aries who are part of a big senior group.
“Our team is mostly seniors. We have about eight. We return five guys from last year that were in the rotation. We have good talent we just need to combine that with great effort and we’ll be great.”
Aries wants to be among the best in the state on the glass.
“As a team I want to make a deep run in the playoffs come March,” Akiel stated. “We have the tools to do it, we all need to buy in. Individually I want to average over 10 rebounds a game.”
Several programs are starting to call Akiel with interest at the next level.
“Metro State, Eastern New Mexico, Sioux Falls, University of Charleston, Northeastern State, Colorado Christian, and Regis have all reached out to me these past couple months. I’ve gone on a visit to Sioux Falls and plan to go on more soon.”