Basketball Preview: The Hard Part
Two-hour open gyms six days a week. 6:30 AM lifting before school. 30 suicides in 30 minutes. 25 wins. An SCC Champsionship. A Regional Championship. And now the hard part begins: the repeat.
After the success of last year’s team, the Chargers are looking to not only repeat— but improve. With so much experience, the table is set. 6’5” off guard Anthony Kelly and 6’3” forward Mike Adams are 3-year varsity starters going into their 4th year. Steven Hollon is only a junior but has a year of starting on varsity. Joe Guth, Mark Brauweiler, and Brian O’Donnell all have two years of varsity experience behind them. 6’6” center Nick Czaja will return after a solid year as the Chargers’ second leading scorer. Senior Tom Barkei returns to strengthen the bench. Newcomers Alex Schaeffer (‘10) and Brian Droeski (‘10) will look to add depth to an already deep team; both players have starting experience on the freshmen and sophomore teams. Matt Wagner (‘09) and Chris Stuhlmaker (‘10) join the Chargers to round out the squad at 13. With so many returners to a squad that set a school record for wins, expectations are high.
Though leading scorer Mark Adams was lost to graduation, the Chargers don’t seem to be worried about making up his 19 points per game. The eight returners for Central will be looking to match the improvement they saw from a 12-20 season to a 25-5 season. That improvement should more than account for Adams’ absence.
The Chargers will continue to look to push the ball at every given opportunity, and will still look to go for steals and get easy transition buckets by utilizing their three proven shot blockers— Mike Adams, Nick Czaja, and Anthony Kelley. Their combination of experience, scoring, defense, and shot blocking should provide for even better games and bigger wins than last year.
Last year seemed to be hard enough, and the upcoming year will be just as hard. The Chargers will have a bulls-eye on their back, as every team that plays them know that Central won last year— and won a lot. All SCC opponents will be shooting at Central, using the Chargers as their motivation for the year. That’s what success does to you. And that’s the kind of success the Chargers are hoping to repeat.
