Young Wildcats learning on the fly

Christian Haffner, the Central Wisconsin Conference-10’s Player of the Year last season, left big shoes to fill on the Gresham Community School’s boys basketball team.

After averaging over 26 points per game a season ago, Haffner accepted an offer to join the Marquette University men’s basketball team as a walk-on.

No one player can make up the production of a player of Haffner’s stature, Gresham head coach Jeff Zobeck said, but with a combined effort, the Wildcats might not see a drop-off on offense from the squad that compiled a 21-4 record and finished second in the CWC-10.

“We’re looking for the best out of each of the guys we have,” Zobeck said. “They are equally skilled in certain ways, but he was a complete player on the offensive end for sure. And knowledgeable. His knowledge on the court was probably just as important as his actual ability.”

Gresham also lost six other seniors, leaving behind a young squad with only two seniors, Beau Hoffman and Dustin Tomas, — and eight players — on the varsity roster this season.

The Wildcats will need a lot of help from the sophomore and junior class if they want to have a successful season.

“Our biggest limitation right now is numbers,” Zobeck said. “We’ve got quality players at this point, and we’ve got some good, young JV players, but they aren’t ready to take that step to the next level, so any kind of injuries or foul trouble are really going to hurt us on game night.”

A tough loss to Green Bay NEW Lutheran, 56-54, in the WIAA regional final is another motivating factor for the Wildcats, who have never advanced to sectional play.

Neal Cerveny, who carried the Wildcats to a victory on Tuesday over Crandon for the team’s first win of the season, said that the goal is to “try to make it past the regional finals because we haven’t made it past there the last two years. We lost there, so try to make it back past that point and see what happens.”

Cerveny scored 12.5 points per game a season ago, with sophomore point guard Drew Haffner adding 5.9 points.

At this point, though, Zobeck appreciates the effort his team is putting in to become better players.

“Are we perfect yet? No. We’re a work in progress,” Zobeck said. “We’ve got a lot of pieces to put together, but they are getting it and catching on real quick.”

The boys show up nearly 30 minutes before practice to shoot around, and Zobeck even has to kick them out of the gym at night when he has to leave the school.

“They just love basketball and they pretty much live it,” Zobeck said, “so that makes it pretty easy.”