The target is squarely on the back of the St. Mary's Eagles.Last night, NorthPoleHoops.com released their preseason "top 25" high school teams in the country, and there was some solid CWOSSA representation --- especially right at the top, where St. Mary's was given the #1 preseason ranking.
Yes, as in "the top team in the country".
It's uncharted waters for not only the Eagles, but CWOSSA basketball as a whole, as the Cameron Heights Golden Gaels also cracked the top 10.
St. Mary's wallowed in D8 mediocrity while a downtown school, but has gradually improved (and now flourished, winning the last 3 CWOSSA "AAAA" senior titles) in the 13 years since its campus was moved out to Block Line Road.
"Our program at St. Mary's has been lucky to have had talented basketball players in our network of feeder schools for the past 5 or 6 years," noted head coach Jason Hergott.
"We don't recruit, we start our season November 1st every year and we don't run our own tournament but what we do have are students who love to play ball and are committed to playing team ball," he added.
That last bit is certainly important, given that this year's version of the Eagles is an already stacked roster returning about 90% of their scoring offense from a season ago (Tesloth Simon, Tyrick Thompson, Nathan Riley, Jermaine Stephenson, and Jermaine Lyle) with some talented juniors moving up (Minas Abara, Adham Eleeda, etc.).
The Eagles are clearly looking forward to the challenge of living up to the billing.
"We'll play anyone, anytime," said Hergott.
The Eagles, who just have a few practices under their belt, will be thrown into the fire this weekend at the prestigious Father Henry Carr Nike Early Bird Tournament. That tips off today, with St. Mary's facing two other top 25 teams --- Eastern Commerce and D'Youville --- in pool play.
Coach Hergott, though grateful for the recognition, understands that the preseason ranking means little in the grand scheme of things.
"Hopefully we will be able to get as close to that artificial number as possible at the end of the season when the number becomes real."
