CURWENSVILLE – It is year number six for Curwensville Area High School boys basketball coach Matt Wassil since his return to the Golden Tide sidelines and things are looking up for this year’s squad after coming off a 3-13 campaign during the 2020-21 season that was severely impacted by COVID-19.
Coach Wassil’s expectations begin in practice, and that’s every practice, saying “We have to be mature enough to put work in every day at practice. I know it’s a cliché, but we have to be more consistent and most of that inconsistency is mental and that can’t happen.”
Looking at key players, as of now, Wassil talked about a few, commenting, “We should really be strong at the two lead guard spots with junior Danny McGarry and senior Ty Terry. Tyler Lee and Landan Swatsworth are our two other seniors that can help us if they play their roles within the offense and defense.”
A couple of other players also have caught coach Wassils’ eye as he said, “Grant Swanson (sophomore) has been a pleasant surprise for us. He’s had good few weeks in practice. Also another sophomore, Parker Wood, will provide an inside presence as you can’t teach 6’ 6”. We have to be good in transition on both ends to be successful. It’s also nice to have a lot of the younger guys that are going to be pushing each other for playing time, which is a good thing.”
The Golden Tide have just three letter winners returning in seniors Swatsworth and Terry, as McGarry, a junior, is the other.
Curwensville will open the new season with a road trip to Clearfield on Friday December 10. The two teams met just once last year with the Bison winning 85-22. Clearfield is coming off another District 9 Title (Class AAAA) in 2021, its seventh straight.
Listen to the Golden Tide-Bison game on WOKW-FM, 102.9 this Friday with the pre-game show starting at approximately 7:15 pm.
ROSTER:
SENIORS: Tyler Lee, Landan Swatsworth, Ty Terry
JUNIORS: Tory Condon, Ty Colton, Daniel McGarry*, Carson Spencer, Ayden Sutika
SOPHOMORES: Braden Holland, Conner Howell, Grant Swanson, Andrew Wassil, Parker Wood
FRESHMEN: Chandler English, Davis Fleming, Connor Luzier, Hunter Tkacik
* denotes returning letterwinner
SCHEDULE:
DECEMBER: 10 at Clearfield, 13 at Mt Union, 17 MO VALLEY, 20 at Glendale, 28 & 29 at Philipsburg-Osceola Tournament
JANUARY: 3 at Bellwood-Antis, 6 BROCKWAY, 7 at Juniata Valley, 10 at Williamsburg,
13 WEST BRANCH, 14 at Brockway, 19 HARMONY, 21 MT UNION, 25 at Mo Valley,
26 at Harmony, 28 GLENDALE
FEBRUARY: 1 BELLWOOD-ANTIS, 4 JUNIATA VALLEY, 8 WILLIAMSBURG, 11 at West Branch, 15 CLEARFIELD
NOTE: Home games in caps. All varsity games are set for 7:30 pm tip-offs unless otherwise noted.