sports@southwesttimes.com
PULASKI – It’s a proven fact that all birds fly south in the winter, but the Pulaski Middle School Orioles boys basketball team look to be heading north and soaring high in their 2009-10 campaign with a nice mix of veteran leadership and young talent.
The team returns three starters from last season and a good number of talent, including 6 eighth graders. However, the majority of the roster will include many new faces with seventh graders, as they occupy 10 of the teams 16 players. This lack of experience has second-year head coach Daniel Goff confident, but anxious about what he’ll see from his team.
“My expectations are pretty high with this group,” Goff said. “We’ve got quite a few players returning who have been playing together for a while, be it AAU or middle school basketball. They’ve been going to camps and getting it done in the off season. Our experience level is good, but we are going to have to see this year because we are young, but experienced at the same time.”
The key pieces to the team will be Tyler Blevins, Lonnie Mattox, and Logan Alley, all of whom started for the Orioles just a season ago. Blevins is a seventh grader, while Mattox and Alley are both eighth graders.
Coach Goff believes the primary reason for his success this season will rest with two of these players and their abilities in practice and on the court.
“I think Lonnie Mattox and Logan Alley are going to be the key for me this year,” Goff said. “They work hard, not only by scoring points, but on the defensive end. We can win a lot of ball games. If they want to slack off and not work up to their potential, then it could be a long year. They are the key. Those are the two eighth graders and the two leaders. That is a lot of experience between those two. Their work ethic is going to tell how far we are going to go this season.”
As a tune up for their season, the team is playing a small tournament this Monday through Wednesday and a bigger tournament on Saturday. Teams from Dublin, Christiansburg, Fort Chiswell, and Roanoke will all compete this week against the Orioles.
Goff likes the idea of giving all of his players, especially the more inexperienced ones, some more exposure during this preseason competition.
“It’s just a little preseason thing that we do every year,” Goff said. “Has it helped us once we get into the regular season? I think it gets the jitters out because some of these kids have never played organized basketball before. The most organized basketball they have ever played is rec league basketball. When they step on the floor for that preseason tournament, it gives them a chance to get a couple of games under their belt. I think it is great for this area. People that come to the tournament always come year in and year out. It’s a good time usually and everyone gets some games in.”
You can catch the Orioles in action tonight and Wednesday night. The action starts at 5pm. The tournament on Saturday will last all day long.
(11-11-09)
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