Article By: Brian Smiley
The St. John's College Green Eagles are off to a good start
in the Brant County high school senior boys basketball league.
After losing Tuesday night to the undefeated North
Park Collegiate Trojans, St. John's is 3-2. While the team's coaches had no
doubt the players had the skill to do well, things are falling into place a
little quicker than they'd anticipated.
"We're pretty young this year," said Mike Doherty,
who belongs to a coaching staff that also includes head coach Tim Dawson and
Lindsay Ronson. "We have a couple of Grade 10s on our team so we weren't
expecting very much early on.
"We're really planning for later in the season. We're
really playing for February."
Doherty said the Eagles had more than 30 players try out for
the team and the 14 that the coaches selected have unique backgrounds.
"We've got some great athletes on this team," he
said. "We've got two provincial rugby players, we've got a provincial
baseball player, we've got a provincial football player and we've got a couple
of kids who won an OBA Division I (baseball) championship last year.
"We've got lots of athleticism on this team."
That didn't mean making selections for the team was easy.
"There were some tough decisions," Doherty said.
"Because we kept two Grade 10s, we looked at the development there. They
were ahead of a lot of the Grade 11s and 12s."
Despite injuries to some of its key players, St. John's
started the season off well. At The Brantford Expositor/Ed O'Leary Memorial
Senior Boys Basketball Tip-Off Tournament, the Green Eagles finished second to
North Park.
"North Park, with Matt Minutillo, they're going to be
tough to beat this year," said Doherty. "They're a very good
team."
While St. John's has earned three wins during the regular
season, its one loss was to the two-time defending champions from Assumption
College. In that game, the Green Eagles got behind but tightened things up in
the second half as they lost 56-52 in their first contest of the season.
"We put ourselves in a corner," said Doherty.
"We gave up 40 points in the first half. That's a lot of points to give
up, even in a game.
"We only gave up 16 in the second half which showed we
were night and day.
"They've got a couple of returning players and they're
well coached."
With so many athletes from different backgrounds - and some
younger players on the team - the St. John's coaching staff realizes it's going
to take a while for things to fall into place just the way they'd like.
"We've got a core of kids who don't really understand
the system we're trying to do," said Doherty.
"We try to build our
offence on the defensive end.
"We're trying to implement some defensive things. We're
still doing a lot of teaching on that, where we're trying to do a lot of ball
pressure. Unfortunately for some of the newer kids coming in, they think the
ball pressure is fouling and we're fouling way too much."
The Eagles will lean on their two leaders - fifth-year
player Adrian Mendoza and Grade 10 player Ben Kwasnik. Those two are part of a
core four that includes Zach Dawson and Danny Weagle.
St. John's is also expecting Grade 10 Ryan Kidd and senior
Tommy Gemmell, recovering from injuries, to join a roster that also includes
Brian Coon, Chris Brewster, Michael Dubois, Nik Kilik, Nick Koehler, Liam
Macmillan, Jordan Nichols and Jacob Spencer.
As they get ready for the second half of the season after
Christmas, the coaches hope their players continue to improve.
"Our practices have been fabulous," Doherty said.
"The kids are really working. What we try to preach is try to make your
teammates better and that's what they've been doing."
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