St. Ed’s boys basketball team opened its regular season on an encouraging note last week by winning two of three contests played on the always preferred home court.
Some wild ups and downs were not unexpected this early as head coach Greg Zugrave puts the pieces of a hardcourt mosaic together. The yo-yo-like scores last week reflected exactly that. The Pirates sandwiched wins of 62-22 vs. Morningside Academy and 52-17 vs. Covenant Christian around a 64-41 defeat to Melbourne Central Catholic.
This squad is fundamentally different than those of the recent past and the drawing board will get a pretty good workout as the personnel rotation takes shape.
“We are very inexperienced at most positions, but the kids have been working very hard,” Zugrave said.
“We have been throwing a lot at them and introducing new things at every practice. We are also working on things that we have already covered, so it’s a quick learning curve.
“But we’ve got some smart kids here and we think that by the time we get going over the next few weeks – and everybody has practiced with us for a while – we will be able to put together a more complete package of what we want to do.
“So I’m excited about the season.”
The roster of 13 was not whole until football players Payton Cleveland, Andrew MacIntyre and T.J. Kenney joined team just last week. These guys brought some size with them.
“We are a very big team, probably one of the biggest teams I’ve had in my six years here,” Zugrave told us. “With Cleveland and MacIntyre we have presence inside and around the basket. We will have to adjust some of the things we’ve done in the past when we had more guard-oriented teams. We want to use our size to the best advantage. We really want to emphasize getting the ball inside and scoring around the basket.
“Defensively, we want to defend the rim and make teams beat us from the outside. We won’t just give up the outside, we want to make sure that we are defending all over the court. We are going to play a lot of guys and we want to play at a high energy pace. It won’t necessarily be a fast break up-and-down kind of pace, but one that involves a lot of intensity on defense.”
Over the past two seasons the Pirates graduated two prolific scorers in Bobby Barker and Nick Succes. They were counted on to carry the load and often responded with big numbers.
“This is not going to be a team where we have one guy scoring lots of points,” Zugrave explained. “It is going to be a smaller number of points contributed from a wide variety of sources.”
Cleveland, MacIntyre, Luke Santini, James McGuire and Brandon Succes have all hit double figures in the young season. Another guy on the team will see to it that they all get their chances.
“Thomas Bockhorst comes back as a three-year starter and he has the most experience of anyone on the team,” Zugrave said. “He can score inside and outside and do all of the little things that don’t necessarily pop up on the stat chart. He is our point guard and team leader.
“We need him on the court. We are a very different team without him. He is very much like a coach on the floor.”
Bockhorst, McGuire and K.C. Barry are the only three seniors on the team and they have been designated tri-captains. “The coaches have been doing a great job of getting us ready for the season,” Bockhorst said. “We’ve got a young team and we hope to get stronger and build on our experience as the season goes on.
“We’ve got to find more consistency on offense and start to make more shots. I try to be a leader on the court, pass first, and set up my teammates for open shots. We are working hard in practice and getting better. We want to be ready when the district games come around.”
The first two District 7-3A games were on tap for this week. As was the case last year, the Pirates will also play a Sunshine State Athletic Conference schedule and be able to contend for two separate championships. St. Ed’s will also host the first annual D5 Alive holiday tournament in memory of Darell Flowers.
The slate is jam-packed and co-captain Barry intends to keep everyone on an even keel.
He said, “I want to make sure everyone is having a good time. Everyone seems to be getting along really well in the locker room. I think it’s been a great start to the season.
“It’s always important that we all enjoy the game. We want to help the younger guys figure out what they need to do, especially in practice. But we simply want to just encourage everyone.”