Chris Caporale sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader photo by Chris Caporale Shawano’s Cole Nelson (1) fights through a screen to defend Atty Wagner (11) at a practice this week. Head coach Dave Ambrosius likes the energy the team has shown in practice through the first week.
Bringing back three starters, along with various rotational players from a season ago, the Shawano boys basketball team is confident in what it can do on the court.
The loss of first-team all-conference selection Zeke Gueths, the conference’s leading scorer, will not make things easy, but the Hawks hope to use their speed on the outside to get up and down the court. Also graduating was guard Adam Bartz.
“It’ll be a complete team effort to try and replace that. Zeke and Adam were special basketball players, and they could do some special things on the floor, and I think everybody saw that last year,” Ambrosius said. “But we’ve got a lot of guys coming back that got some varsity experience last year, and I think that’s definitely going to be an asset for us moving forward.”
Juniors Kaden Richards and Cole Nelson, along with senior Austin Kohl, are returning starters for Shawano, which went 10-14 overall and 7-7 in the Bay Conference last season, which ended at the hands of Wausau East in a WIAA Division 2 road regional semifinal loss, 64-49.
Stepping into larger roles this winter are Tyrell Hesse, Jacob Lacy and Dakota Maltbey, all of whom came off the bench a year ago.
Lacy, Hesse and Kohl are all 6-foot-2 or taller and can spread the floor with either midrange or perimeter shooting.
Those three, paired with Nelson and Richards at the guards, can knock down shots from anywhere on the court. Nelson (34 percent) and Richards (31 percent) were Shawano’s top threats from deep last year.
“We’re going to be a lot faster this year,” Richards said. “We’re not going to have to slow it down as much to get Zeke open.”
Nelson shared the same sentiment.
“We’re going to be running up and down the court more with a smaller lineup,” Nelson said.
At times, Shawano will slow the game down to establish Maltbey in the post. Maltbey, a 240-pound center, battled with Gueths each and every practice last season to work on his game, an asset Ambrosius believes he will see on the court this season.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that can shoot the ball pretty well, so I think depth and our perimeter play is a strength,” Ambrosius said. “Plus, any time you got Dakota, I mean, we’re going to have the biggest kid on the floor night in and night out. I think there’s nights where we’re definitely going to have an advantage inside also.”
Through the first week of practice, Ambrosius has liked what he’s seen out of the guys, who open up their season at the two-day Wausau East Tournament on Nov. 25-26.
“We get after it in practice, and the guys get after each other a little bit and hold each other accountable if their not playing up to their level,” Ambrosius said. “I really like that, and we get aggressive with each other, which is nice.”