CURWENSVILLE – After finishing with a 14-9 record and losing in the District 9 AA quarterfinals, the Curwensville Area High School Golden Tide boys basketball squad is banking on some experienced players to lead them back to the playoffs under head coach Shane Pentz, now in his fourth year.
“We have three lettermen from last year in Trey Rauchkhorst, Alex Hill and Jake Terry but also add a returning letterman from his sophomore year in Harrison Bloom. He got hurt early last year and missed most of his junior season”, Pentz said.
Rauckhorst led the Tide in rebounding last year and was the third leading scorer while Terry was fifth in scoring and second in three-point field goal percentage.
About what the Golden Tide lost through graduation from last season’s winning team, Pentz commented, “We did lose a lot of experience from last year’s team but we are hoping to be a little more balanced offensively this year. This group has had some success as they came up through the levels of competition since they’ve been in 7th grade, they just didn’t play a lot of varsity last year as a group.”
The Tide lost nine players from last year in Tanner Elensky, Brett Gardner, Kyle Johns, Austin Jacobson, Alex Olson, Nate Kurtz, Jason Thorp, Josh Shaffer and Bryce McClure.
Pentz spoke about this year’s team using its quickness and speed, “We want to get up and down the floor. We feel like we have some really good athletes and want to use our team speed and quickness to our advantage.” Then, the Golden Tide mentor added, “The boys have been working really hard in practice and we are really excited to see how that translates to a game. I do think we may surprise some people this year if they think we may be down, considering the starters and backups we lost. We have had some players that have really worked in the off season and I expect them to step right in and be varsity contributors. They have waited their turn and now it’s their time to show what they can do.”
Curwensville, as mentioned earlier, lost in the District 9 AA quarterfinals to Brookville last year, 53-51 and Pentz .feels his squad can make it back to the playoffs, “We got beat in the District playoffs by two points when we lost to Brookville. They would go on to win the District 9 AA championship by 18 points. We want to get back to the playoffs and make a bigger splash this time and I think we’ve got the players to do it as long as we give constant effort each night.”
Pentz would not elaborate on starters but did say the Golden Tide have about 10 players that will see a lot of action and may, at times, use a different starting line-up.
The Tide open the 2014-15 season at Moshannon Valley on Friday December 5.
Listen to Curwensville-Moshannon Valley boys basketball on WOKW-FM, 102.9, with the pre-game show starting at 7:15 pm.
ROSTER:
SENIORS: *Alex Hill, Harrison Bloom, *Trey Rauckhorst, Foster Cannon, Dillon Davis, Jonathan Miller
JUNIORS: *Jake Terry, Noah Strickland, Quamone Newkirk, Curtis Linsenbigler, R. J. Olson
SOPHOMORES: Zach Marshall, Alec Opaliski
FRESHMEN: Sawyer Cannon
* DENOTES LETTER WINNER
SCHEDULE:
DECEMBER – 5 at Moshannon Valley, 8 at Brockway, 10 HARMONY, 12 RIDGWAY,
15 CLEARFIELD, 16 WEST BRANCH, 19 KANE
JANUARY – 2 at DuBois Central Catholic, 6 JOHNSONBURG, 9 MOSHANNON VALLEY,
14 ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC, 16 GLENDALE, 19 at West Branch, 20 at Ridgway,
23 BROCKWAY, 26 DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC, 28 at Harmony, 30 at Johnsonburg
FEBRUARY – 2 at Glendale, 3 SHEFFIELD, 6 at Kane, 9 at Clearfield
NOTE: HOME GAMES IN CAPS. ALL JUNIOR VARSITY GAMES START AT 6 PM UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. VARSITY GAMES START 15 MINUTES AFTER COMPLETION OF JV GAME.