By John Raffel
The Sacred Heart Academy boys’ and girls’ basketball teams both contended for state titles last season, and it appears that could be the case again this year. The girls are defending state champions and would be undefeated after their first 11 games had it not been for a 38-37 loss to Carson City-Crystal.
Coach Pat Theisen’s boys’ team began the season 7-1. The only loss was 66-46 to an undefeated Beaverton team.
“We’re off to a pretty good start,” Theisen said. “We’re pretty young. We returned two guys off our quarterfinal team from last year. We had nine that hadn’t played varsity basketball. In that regard, we’re off to a pretty good start. We’re playing some pretty good basketball. We seem to be pretty resilient for the most part. I know I was talking about how young we are. We’re pretty even-keeled, never too high, never too low. They look like a team that’s played a lot of varsity basketball. For the most part, we’re very fast. We have good guard play. We’re able to play to the tempo we want to.”
Ben Goenner is averaging 17 points a game at point guard to lead the team. He and Tomas Krepostman, a shooting guard, are the two returners from last year’s team.
Kyle Szymanski has had a strong season at guard-forward.
“Offensively, we’re still jelling,” Theisen said. “Defensively, we’ve been pretty sharp. We’re only giving up about 45 to 46 points a game.
“Talent-wise, they’ve got all the talent in the world. But we will see some very good competition.”
Meanwhile, the Irish girls started out 10-1 overall and 4-1 in the league. The only blemish for coach Damon Brown’s team was a buzzer-beater loss to Carson City-Crystal, the top-rated Class C school in the state.
“It’s going well,” Brown said. “We had high expectations going into the season. The girls have accepted the challenge of being defending state champs.”
The Irish have been led by Riley Terwilliger, along with other players. “Skylar Nelson has been super,” Brown said. “She has come out and taken her game to the next level.”
Averi Gamble is also having a strong season for the Irish.