Shawano boys basketball team needs returning players to step up

Hawks trying to make up for strong class that graduated
By: 
Morgan Rode
Sports Editor

The Shawano Community High School boys basketball believes it can still piece together a strong season this winter despite losing some of the key cogs to last year’s team.

The Hawks went 12-11 last season, finishing in the middle of the Bay Conference with a 6-8 record. This year’s team will need to replace Carter Weisnicht and Nick Sherman, who were the team’s all-conference selections and combined to average over 40 points a game.

Coach David Ambrosius knows it won’t be easy to replace the seniors that graduated, but has enough returning talent to be optimistic for the coming season.

“It will be difficult to replace the production of both Carter and Nick from last season, but we do return a large part of our rotation from last season,” said Ambrosius. “So we will be relying on those returners to take some big steps forward this year.”

Senior Joe Mente (guard) and junior Ethan Schwitzer (forward) and Elliott Lowney (guard) return with starting experience for the Hawks. Seniors Kaleb Lowney (guard) and Rory Johnson (forward), junior Jayden Van Oss and sophomore Jacob Landon (forward) all have valuable varsity experience and will be what Shawano builds around.

“After losing all of our seniors we now have to have some new guys step up into their roles and score the points that they would’ve scored,” said Schwitzer. “After losing Carter Weisnicht, we are now a shorter team so this year we are hoping to really use our athleticism and speed.”

Among the players that will help fill out the rotation is the sophomore quartet of Michael Metcalf-Grassman (guard), Brandon Reed (forward), Julian Perez (guard) and Luke Guenther (guard).

Ambrosius said he expects the sophomore class to be able to make some big contributions and help the team out in what the coach believes to be a strong conference.

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