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| Boys basketball captains think Saints can make up for losses |
By: Pat Beck
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Posted: Tuesday, December 1, 2009 10:34 am
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ST. PETER — Despite having some significant scoring, rebounding and passing to replace, St. Peter boys basketball team captains Brodie Raymond, Mitch Nelson and Ian Karlsrud think the Saints have the players to step in and fill the roles.
All-conference guard Erik Langsjoen (15.0 points per game, 3.6 rebounds, 4.7 assists), all-conference forward Skyler Sandland (8.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.3 assists) and honorable mention point guard Jordan Skrove (6.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists) are gone.
Back are 6-1 all-conference senior guard Brodie Raymond (19.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists) and 6-2 senior post Britton Schott (1.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, 0.3 assists).
“We’ve got a young team this year, with only two returning starters,” Raymond said. “We have seven seniors who should contribute quite a bit this year, only one junior and five sophomores, so we’re relatively inexperienced. But we had a good summer, so we should do pretty good.
“The losses are going to be tough, especially scoringwise. Erik Langsjoen averaged like 15, and Skyler and Jordan 8 and 6. It’s going to be tough to replace that scoring, but we’ve got a lot of guys that are capable of filling that void. And hopefully some of our younger players will step up.
“I can obviously shoot the ball pretty well. Shooting is my main strength. I’m an undersized rebounder. I can rebound the ball pretty well.”
Nelson, a 6-2 small forward who missed all of last season with a knee injury and is questionable for this season, agrees that, “We had a great summer. We played a lot of competitive teams, so it should be a fun season. Hopefully we’ll pull some wins out and maybe get to sections and to state. We went 24-6 in the summer and 7-3 in the fall league. We won our summer league.”
Listing rebounding and defense as his strengths, Nelson has not been cleared by doctors to play yet. “I go in for an evaluation Dec. 23 to see if I can play. I’ve had one football injury with two knee surgeries and another injury from basketball was my third surgery. So now I’ve been doing rehab. Hopefully I’ll be back playing pretty soon. I can’t practice, but I’ve been in the gym shooting and working on my game.”
Karlsrud, a 6-3 post, came off the bench last year to average 0.6 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.1 assists. “I’m big on defense. I’m not much of a offensive guy, but I can score if I need to. I’m much better at defense.
“It’s going to be kind of tough right away to figure out the scoring,” Karlsrud said, “but once we get a group going and once we figure out everyone’s job, it’s going to be pretty easy to figure out how everything’s going to happen. If we start running, we should be alright, but if we have to slow down and we get pressured, we could be in for a little bit of trouble. We’re a pretty athletic team. We’re fairly balanced, but probably running is going to be what we’re best at, pushing the ball up the floor.”
Nelson said, “Our strength is shooting and working as a team.”
Raymond agrees: “There’s a lot of unselfish players out there. We’ve got quite a few guys that can shoot the ball, light it up on any give night. You never know who’s going to come out and score 20. One day someone can score 5 points and the next day he can be going for 25. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. We just got a lot of guys that can shoot from anywhere on the floor.
“I know one player that’s going to help this year is Joey Bartlett. He’s about 6-2, 6-3, and he can shoot the 3. And he can step in and post people up. It’s kind of the same with Ben Rosburg. Two of sophomores that can do that. Joey is kind of a combo guard. He’s nicknamed the transformer because he can play any position on the floor. Ben’s one of our post players who can step out and shoot a 2.”
The Saints don’t have any extra tall players, but they have only two players less than 6 feet. They still need to work on rebounding.
The leading returning rebounder, Raymond said, “Since we’re small we’ve got to kind of make up for getting the rebounds, the quick outlets and go. We’re not a real strong team, especially in the weight room.”
“We’ve got to learn to box out,” Nelson said.
The Saints had a goal of finishing in the top half of the South Central Conference last season and fell one game s short, finishing 5-5 in the SCC and 9-15 overall
This year they’re shooting for the top half of the conference again and ultimately a conference championship.
“We’re definitely going to be able to compete for the title this year,” Karlsrud said. “We’ve got better shooters this year and then playing more as a team.”
“Playing this summer has made all of the players a lot better skillwise,” Nelson said
Another year with second-year head coach Kelly Raymond will also make a difference, said his son Brodie. “Last year was kind a difficult challenge with a new coach. Coach Raymond would try to get the guys to understand the system, whereas this year we’ve already had a year with him. It’s not really a varsity experience level. It’s that coach and that comfort level with him that we’ve all got now with the extra year with him.
“We’re going to try most of the stuff we did last year motionwise. We’re going to try and get out and run more this year and try to get a lot of fast-break points because we’re going to be smaller that people and be able to outrun them.”
In the section playoffs, the Saints hope to break a longtime string of first-round losses. Dropping down a class from AAA to AA may give the Saints an edge.
“We want to get as far as we can and take it one game at a time,” Raymond said. “Every team wants to make it to state, and that’s obviously our goal. I don’t think St. Peter’s had a section win in I don’t know how many years. We’d like to get one of those.”
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