Boys' basketball: Bluebirds return all starters
By DELBERT PETERS
Contributing writer
All of Goessel's starters will return for the 2002-2003 basketball season, hoping to improve on a 13-11 record from a year ago.
Jeremy Voth, 6'4" and scoring 19.6 points per game, Kent Peters, 6'4" with 12.2 points per game, Clinton Plenert, 6'7" with 11.7 points per game, and Jesse Goertzen, 5'8" with 6.8 points per game, led last year's scoring and all four seniors will return.
Ben Schmidt, a 5'10" senior who led the team in assists and steals, will be back along with point guard Aaron Stehman, who is a 5'10" junior.
Nicholas Peters, Josh Schmidt, Dylan Buller, and Ryan Janzen are expected to see a lot of action this season.
"We need to be able to go at least eight deep," coach Justin Coup said. Coup is in his fifth year as head coach.
The exciting part of the pre-season is that everyone can score.
"We need to improve our defense against the dribble and cut down on turnovers," Coup said. "We play in a very tough league, but I hope we can go into postseason play with 15 wins."
Burrton, Inman, and Moundridge are expected to be among the toughest league opponents this year. Minneapolis will be tough in the early season tournament. Experience will probably be the biggest asset for the team.
Coach Coup is assisted by Chad Schilling, who is in his ninth year as assistant coach, and Jason Maxfield in his first year. Both will help with the 21 players out for the Goessel team.
Goessel will field a team with five seniors, four juniors, five sophomores, and seven freshman. There are expected to be a number of C-team games to go along with the regular varsity and junior varsity games this season.
Goessel finished second in its regional last year and lost in sub-state by seven points to the eventual state champion team, Centralia.
"If each player can figure our his role and accept it, we can get to the next level of competition," Coup said.
Goessel's first game is Friday at home against Ell Saline.
