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Both of the CCHS girls’ and boys’ high school basketball teams are working hard to get ready for the upcoming basketball season. As they work on conditioning and drills, coaches of both programs are pleased with what they are seeing.
Girls’ basketball
Head Coach Kelly Hawsen has fifteen players out for the varsity this season. “We also have ten girls out for the 7th and 8th grade team, which is a good sign for the program,” she added.
While the Vikings aren’t tall, they have a nice mixture of experience and some talented younger players.
“I don’t think we will have a dominant scorer this season,” Hawsen said. “I think we will have a nice mix of girls scoring eight to ten points. There will be games where one girl will score a lot, but overall, I think we will have a balanced scoring attack. Ideally everyone should get eight, ten shots per game.”
Like many modern offenses there won’t be a true center, but Hawsen said at times they will use two post players. “We will also play five out on the perimeter at times,” she added.
Just who will knock down threes isn’t known yet, but several girls practiced through the summer and that is where shooting is developed.
On defense the team will play man with some zone, Hawsen said.
Players to watch are Katie Peck, a 5’8” guard, Makenzie Fairbanks, a 5’3” guard, Molly Quello, MaTaya Fairbanks, Amery Oberg and a host of others who will see playing time.
“Our first game of the year is away on December 1st at Northwoods but the next Friday we have a game at home. The JV will start at 4:45 p.m. and the varsity will play 6:30 p.m.,” said Hawsen.
Boys
Former Viking’s assistant Keaton Riley is the Viking’s new head basketball coach. On Tuesday Keaton was putting the boys through their paces, running them through “killers” and keeping them moving as they worked on rebounding, defense, layups, and more conditioning.
“Half the team is gone today,” he said, adding some were sick and some left early for Thanksgiving vacation. Still, the ten boys practicing (19 are out this year) looked good.
The team lost a lot of varsity experience from graduation, which means a lot of new players will have to step up.
“We plan on running a motion and swing offense. On defense we will play man with some two-three zone to rest our legs and switch things up. But we will also have a full court press in our back pockets, and we will press at times.”
This past summer a group of players competed in a summer league and Coach Riley said, “We won as many games as we lost. We were competitive.”
“We are going to build fundamentals and build a program. I plan on being here for a long time. One thing we are doing is to have some team meals. We are going to move these around. One will be coming up in Grand Portage. Building the program through community is important.”
One of Keaton’s assistant coaches is Tia Parks. A high school basketball player in Tennessee, Tia works for the county where she got to know Keaton, who also works for the county.
“When I found out he was coaching I told him I could help. I have coached boys’ basketball before,” said Parks. “The boys who are out are extremely coachable. I couldn’t ask for a better group of kids,” she said.
We have some excellent youth and middle school coaches, said Keaton. Continuing this is important. Keeping these teams together will also be important. Most winning programs in this state have excellent youth systems in place. One thing we are doing is having our middle school teams start to learn similar offensive and defensive systems that the varsity team will be running. However, fundamentals, including teamwork, at both these levels will be of the utmost importance.”
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