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Watchmen hope a year of experience pays off
Steindl earns first team honors for Newberg
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High hopes for C.S. Lewis Academy |
This could be the best team in Bruce Toney's three
years as a coach |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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C.S. Lewis Academy boys basketball coach
Bruce Toney has high hopes.
Which is understandable, given that the Watchmen are coming off a
season where they went 7-7 in the Casco League and 11-13 overall.
The Watchmen qualified for the Casco League district tournament, but
lost 49-30 in the first round to Life Christian.
Toney
is optimistic despite the loss of three senior starters — Kyle Lyda,
Daniel Nibler and Adam Harrington, along with reserve Michael
Fleming. Toney returns everyone else and also made a few key
additions.
However, Toney, in his third year as coach, doesn’t want to get
ahead of himself, although he likes what he’s seen in practice.
“After two weeks, we’re already much further ahead than where we’ve
been in the past,” he said.
Besides the two weeks of practice, Toney said he thinks the team’s
hefty summer league schedule will pay dividends during this season.
Several members of the Watchmen played hundreds of minutes in summer
league games and at a weeklong camp at Seaside. C.S. Lewis was the
lone Class 1A school; the rest were Class 2A, 3A, 4A and 5A schools.
“That team camp really helped us,” he said. “We got thumped in a
few games over there, but the kids found out what they needed to do
to compete at that level.”
The team played Willamina and Vernonia, and fell to Seaside and
Pendleton. The Watchmen fell by 40 points to Portland Christian, a
team coached by Toney’s son, Tyler.
“I didn’t feel too bad about that because they were beating
everyone like that,” Toney said. “But just the experience and
staying five days over there, it really helped the chemistry of the
team. Besides our loss to Portland Christian, I felt we played with
most of them.”
One key
addition the Watchmen made was that of senior post Ivan
Soppe-Navetta, who transferred from Newberg High School. His
addition, Toney said, seems to have already paid off for the
Watchmen. He said some players were a little hesitant that
Soppe-Navetta would “come in and do it all,” but that hasn’t been
the case.
“The kids just love playing with him now,” he said. “He gets the
other kids involved and they know if they get open, he’ll get them
the ball and I think he likes passing just as much as he likes
scoring. It’s rubbing off on the other kids, too. They’re making
that extra pass.”
The team also returns senior point guard Tim Scott, who received
honorable mention all-state accolades last season.
“He’s taken a bigger leadership role this season and I kind of put
the pressure on him to do that,” Toney said. “That was one of the
things we didn’t have last year — that leadership.”
Toney said Soppe-Navetta assumed a leadership role. It spread to
the team’s other senior, post Andy Keyser, a starter on last
season’s team.
“I told them I expect them to be the same way and they’ve have so
far,” Toney said.
Scott is a known quantity in the Casco League. He not only runs the
offense, but his ability to drive and hit outside shots can cause
other teams consternation. Toney said teams could likely double-team
Scott this season, something Toney wouldn’t mind. Toney said he
feels comfortable that if teams double-team Scott, sophomores Ryan
Haffner and Blake Boddington can step up and hit shots.
“Before it’s over, (Haffner) could be one of the best three-point
shooters in the league,” Toney said. “He just has to get the
confidence. But, he got a lot more confident this year than he had
last year.”
Boddington, a 5-foot-5 left-hander, is also a threat.
“He’s grown a lot this year,” Toney said. “We had a long discussion
last year at the camp about what he needed to work on to receive
playing time and he’s done that. His shooting has always been good,
but his defense and decision-making with the ball was something he
needed to work on and he’s working twice as hard as he did last
year.”
The team also has sophomore point guard Gabe Leatherman, who didn’t
play on the team last season. The lefty could be a key addition to
the team.
“He’s just got a knack for getting inside and he’s probably our
best passer as far as guards go,” Toney said.
As far as the league goes, Country Christian is the likely
favorite, with Perrydale a close second, followed by C.S. Lewis. St.
Paul, however, is probably the wild card in the league. The Bucks
lost coach Buell Gonzales Jr., who resigned to take the head
coaching job at Class 2A Santiam. Bryce Court, an assistant on St.
Paul’s team last year, was hired to replace Gonzales.
“In the last couple of years, they were definitely, by far, the
best defensive team in the league,” Toney said. “If they get any
kind of offense from those kids, they’ll be tough. They’re a team
that kind of scares me.”
To be successful, Toney said the Watchmen must accomplish three
things: generate fewer turnovers, convert freethrow attempts and
keep the team’s post players out of foul trouble. If the Watchmen
can do all three they could be a dangerous team not only at the
Casco League level, but perhaps at the state level.
“We just have to take care of the basketball and we’ll be fine, but
defense will be a big part, too,” he said. “If our big kids stay out
of foul trouble, that’ll be big because there’s nobody in our league
that has the post players at the caliber of (Keyser) and (Soppe-Navetta).”
The Watchmen begin their season Dec. 1 at Horizon Christian. |
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From
Nov. 18, 2006, Newberg Graphic
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