Sports - January 2004

Rebels visit Trojans in rematch

By JOHN MARK BROOKS, Staff Writer

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Winning less than seven games last year, the basketball program, under the direction of head coach Chad Wright is on the rise at West Lincoln.

This year the Rebels are 7-10 overall and 2-5 in the Midwest 2A. Although happy with the direction of the program, Wright is not satisfied with surpassing last year’s win total.

“We’ve been very pleased with the progress of our team. A couple of close losses in the conference puts our record a little bit behind where we wanted to be at this point. There’s a lot of basketball to be played,” he said.

Wright, himself, won’t comment on anything that happened previous to his being there.

“It’s hard for me to speak about last year because I don’t know. All I know is that these guys go out and compete. They’re coachable and they desire to work together as a team,” he said.

West will visit the Chase Trojans tonight. In their previous meeting the Rebels defeated the Trojans 62-55. The game will mark the second run-through of conference teams for West Lincoln.

“It’s sort of the same story every year. One time through you see where you stand and at that point you evaluate. Then you see what you can do, and need to do, in order to try to knock some teams off when you see them again,” Wright said.

The coach who came to West Lincoln this year from Hibriten feels that the Midwest 2A has several strong suites compared to other conferences.

“The coaches in this league are very impressive. We get the opportunity to see a lot of good athletes, but what our fans are seeing is a league where good basketball is played as well,” he said.

Several players have developed well under Wright and assistant coach John Henderson.

Ty Curtis has been in double figures rebounding three games in a row and has averaged over eight for most of the year. When Wright and his staff looks for consistency they look no further than Matt Edwards.

“Matt is our most consistent player on the offensive end and our anchor on the defensive end. Ty has really played well offensively of late, he’s becoming more assertive on the low blocks with the ball in his hand,” Wright said.

Wright has been extremely pleased with Matt Cook over the course of the season.

“We’ve seen tremendous progress in Matt Cook coming off the bench for us. He’s beginning to understand the organized style of play that comes participating on a team at this level and he’s getting more comfortable with each passing day,” he said.

With another month of basketball to play, West Lincoln will need Ryan Huffman, B.J. Holland and Chase Caldwell to continue to be leaders. Wright believes they will be the driving force for his team and will help determine how successful they will be as a team.

 “The key for us the next time through the league will be the play of our perimeter players Ryan, B.J. and Chase. How well they can manage the basketball and the offense and defend will determine if we make further progress as a unit. We have the utmost confidence that they will respond to the challenge,” he said.

No matter what happens the rest of the season many West Lincoln fans believe this season has been a success already and that the Rebels basketball program is headed in the ‘Wright’ direction.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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