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Varsity basketball looks to underclassmen for answers

By: Andy Koestel
Sports Editor

Last year, the Lancers varsity boys basketball team traveled deep into the playoffs. This year the team must overcome the loss of experience to venture that far again.

Tryouts were November 12 and 13. Varsity Basketball Coach Andy Schulz said anyone who wanted to try out could. "The truth is, everyone had a fair chance of making the team. However, anyone with experience had an advantage over those who have never played," added Schulz.

Schulz reported that this year's team should be one of the elite teams among the ECL, as expected. However, they will need to achieve this level of play with the lingering images of last season's success. Among those images will be those players who have graduated and left the team. Sophomore Tim Finegan said, "I think the young players will have to step it up, and try to lead the team, and if that is successful, then in the future, we should be in great shape as a team."

Schulz said that last year's team was a great one, but it could have been improved in some areas. The '00-'01 team was one that won its games by overpowering their opponents. The lethal offense was too much for most teams to handle. Schulz commented that this year, the Lancers will try to improve the areas which they were lacking last year.

"The areas that need the most work are defense and rebounding," said Schulz. He added that the problem isn't that the team is bad at rebounding, it's that the players need to learn to control the boards.

"In order to overcome the lost experience from last year, we will need time to improve," said Schulz. The team lost a lot of their valuable experience from previous years. This year's team is comprised of only three seniors, six juniors, and seven sophomores.

The seniors are Kyle Macaluso, Kevin Porath, and Ryan Walker. The six juniors are Adam Rorabaugh, Garrett Libra, Scott Kuvshinikov, Matt Seth, Jeff Hayden and Tom Grabill. The majority of the team is made up of sophomores, and they are Brian Shulz, Kevin Walker, Matt Griffith, Jordan Plyler, Eric Swackhamer, Nick Omniewski and Finegan.

"We will do pretty good even though we lost [some of] last year's starters," said Plyler.

In the Erie Daily Times, GM was ranked #1 in the ECL preseason poll, receiving eight out of ten first place votes.