CURWENSVILLE – Coming off a season that saw the Curwensville Area High School boys basketball team finish with a record of 6-16 there is certainly expectations for improvement.
Head coach Shane Pentz is entering his fifth season at the helm of the Golden Tide and was able to fill a roster of 15 players during the pre-season.
Five returning lettermen give Pentz a good foundation to build with this year with seniors Noah Strickland, Jake Terry, Quamone Newkirk, R. J. Olsen and junior Zach Marshall.
Terry led the team with 10.8 points per game last year, followed by Olsen, who was injured for half the season but averaged 5.7 per game. Strickland and Newkirk were next, each scoring 5.2 points per contest.
Other key stats for returning players was Terry dishing out three assists per game, Olsen pulling down seven rebounds per game and leading the Tide at the free throw line with a team high 76%. Strickland also had a good year at the charity stripe knocking down 73% of his foul shots.
Newkirk led the Golden Tide in steals last year and made the second most three pointers.
Curwensville graduated six seniors last season in Trey Rauckhorst, Alex Hill, Harrison Bloom, Jonathan Miller, Dillon Davis and Foster Cannon.
The Tide just welcomed eight football players to the pre-season workouts, with several being a key part to this year’s team, which Pentz talked about recently, “Based on the off season workouts, we have an idea of what we can do and achieve. With the success of the football team progressing in the playoffs though, we haven’t had a chance yet to look at starters or anything like that because those kids haven’t been at many official practices at this time.”
Pentz then spoke about the style of play he would like to see on both ends of the court from his team, “With the athletes we have on the team, we want to play at a much faster pace than last year. We want to make it a full court game and use our depth as well. I feel like our bench players will be critical to the success of the team. And we want to mix up our defenses a little bit more this season than in the past. We’ve been known as a zone team recently, but we are looking at multiple defenses this year in both the full and half court game.”
The Golden Tide tip-off the season on the road, on Monday, against rival Clearfield. Listen to the Curwensville – Clearfield game on WOKW-FM, 102.9, starting with the pre-game show at 7:15 pm.
ROSTER:
SENIORS: Jared Bakaysa, Curtis Linsenbigler, *Quamone Newkirk, *R. J. Olsen, *Noah Strickland, *Jake Terry
JUNIORS: *Zach Marshall, Alec Opaliski
SOPHOMORES: Devan Barrett, Sawyer Cannon, Nate McKendrick, Nick Stewart, Josh Terry
FRESHMEN: Christian Bakaysa, Avery Francisco
SCHEDULE:
DECEMBER: 7 at Clearfield, 8 BROCKWAY, 11 at Ridgway, 15 MOSHANNON VALLEY, 16 HARMONY,
18 at Kane, 21 at West Branch
JANUARY: 4 DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC, 6 at Johnsonburg, 8 at Moshannon Valley, 12 at Elk County Catholic, 15 WEST BRANCH, 18 GLENDALE, 19 RIDGWAY, 22 at Brockway, 25 at DuBois Central Catholic,
27 at Harmony, 29 JOHNSONBURG
FEBRUARY: 1 at Glendale, 2 at Sheffield, 5 KANE, 8 CLE