MELHS boys basketball team shoots for excellent season ahead
EDWARDSVILLE – Metro East Lutheran's boys basketball team had, by any standard you use, quite the successful 2014-15 campaign.
The Knights finished with a record of 20-11 and won the IHSA Class 1A Hardin-Calhoun Regional title over the host Warriors before Carrollton eliminated them in the Okawville Sectional semifinals. MEL coach Anthony Smith hopes to use that success as a springboard to even more success in 2015-16.
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“We lost just two kids from last year's team (Kobe Krone and Connor Wallace),” Smith said, “and this year, we have some good weapons back. We had a good summer; we went 3-0 at a camp at Eastern Illinois (in Charleston) and we're very excited about the opportunities we have for this coming season.”
Four seniors – Teddy Fifer, Elijah Culbert, Jason Johnson and Anthony Spiller – are on the roster, along with a very talented junior class that includes Adam Behrhorst, Kenrique Brown, Noah Coddington, Garrett Niemeier, A.J. Risavy and Braden Woolsey.
“We're quick and athletic and we want to pressure the ball,” Smith said. “The main thing we want to do is get better each game and be competitive. We're using a motto, MTXE (Mental Toughness, Extra Effort, which was popularized in the 1980s by Wichita State coach Gene Smithson), because we want out kids to play hard and show mental toughness when we're out on the court.”
The Knights open their season with their 35th Thanksgiving Turkey Tipoff Classic beginning Monday and running through Nov. 28. It's an 18-team tournament, with the participants divided into six three-team groups for play Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; MEL will take on Valmeyer in their opener on Monday and Odin on Wednesday, with both games set for 8:30 p.m. start times. The tournament concludes Friday and Saturday with bracket play in three brackets.
Besides the Prairie State Conference teams (East Alton-Wood River, Marquette Catholic, Bunker Hill, Nokomis, South Fork, Mount Olive and Pawnee) on the schedule, the Knights will also be in the Breese Mater Dei Holiday Tournament and shootout events at Effingham St. Anthony, Pickneyville and Riverton.
“We think we've got some good chemistry; we put in a lot of time in the summer and we're going to go out and play hard every night,” Smith said. “We're trying to develop a family atmosphere here and teach things about life that can apply both on and off the court.”
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