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Elkers look for improvement through season |
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Friday, 11 December 2009 |
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By Greg Reedy Sports Editor The Ridgway boys' basketball team heads into the new season with a young squad looking to improve as the season progresses.
Ridgway has just two seniors, Beau Bellotti and Kevin Marnatti and features many sophomores coming up from ninth grade basketball or sophomores such as Jordan Lundin and Eric Matheson who played on the varsity team last season.
Ridgway coach Anthony Allegretto said the team has progressed nicely through the off-season.
"We've gotten a lot done through the summer, more than we ever have," Allegretto said. "We got a lot done in the fall, more than we ever have. We're much further ahead individually and as a team because of the work a lot of these kids did in the off-season. They take their basketball seriously. It's time for these types of things to start paying off."
Allegretto said the Elkers still have a ways to progress.
"We still have a long way to go and I think we'll be a totally different team at the end of the season," Allegretto said.
Lundin and Matheson have varsity experience from last season.
"A couple ninth graders played last year and they were pretty good players but you hope to not have to stick them in a varsity game situation constantly especially when we weren't able to win or even compete in a lot of games last year," Allegretto said. "This year, we should be much more competitive and those guys will be OK. They're still learning and there's a lot of growth for them. We brought two other ninth graders up, Jesse and Josh. Aaron Sorge, Alex Oknefski, David Carlson, Kyle Kinkead, at the beginning of the season it will be tough for them, especially starting with two Catholic schools. Once they figure out how we're playing, with more experience, we'll be a different team."
Ridgway opens at Elk County Catholic on Dec. 11 then follows with a home game against DuBois Central Catholic on Dec. 14. Allegretto is shooting to have the team at its best at the end of the season.
"We're not shooting to break any records at the beginning of the year," Allegretto said. "We know we're young, we know there's not a whole lot of what we're doing that they understand but if we do it slowly and we are a step ahead already. I think we have the potential to be a pretty good team at the end of the year."
Matheson will be the starting point guard for the Elkers. Allegretto said Matheson is becoming a leader for the team.
He played a lot of basketball, he played with some AAU, was always here with us. "We played more tournaments in the summer and spring circuit," Allegretto said. "He's developing into a leader still, he's a 10th grader, he got a long way to go. Hopefully, the extension of the point guard on the court is an extension of the coach. He'll start thinking a little bit like I am. If we can make that connection this year and the next couple years, we'll be good."
Ridgway finished last season with a 3-18 record and Allegretto feel this year's team should be more competitive.
"After the past three years, where we won eight games, we're looking forward to this year where we can go into games where we know we have a chance, where we know there's something we can do or try to win," Allegretto said. "In the past, there weren't a whole lot of things we could try. We just knew we were in trouble and we just went out and played hard and the kids were great that way. They understood. This year, we don't know how many wins we're going to get. There's no set number where we got to win this many games or it's going to be a failure of a year. We're looking at it's got to be competitive. We're going in and we're going to compete and try to stay in games and try to find ways to win. I think this year we got a lot better chance of doing that type of stuff."
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