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There may not be a more excited boys basketball coach in the state than Seneca’s Russ Witte in regards to seeing what his team can accomplish this season.
And for good reason.
“Every day of practice the last two weeks has been faster and faster, and we are getting where I’d like us to be to start the season,” said Witte, who will enter his 16th season at Seneca with a 258-181 record, including 74-24 the past three seasons. “With the football season unfortunately ending a week early this year, we are ahead of where we were last season. We have 10 varsity players, and all 10 are primed to get rotational minutes, so as a result our practices have been very competitive.
“We may only have 10, but they are the right 10, and we are going to need all 10.”
The Fighting Irish finished last season 23-10, runner-up at 8-1 in the Tri-County Conference regular season, won the league tournament for the first time and lost in the Hall 2A Regional final to Riverdale.
Seneca lost post standouts Lane Provance (11.3 ppg, 8.8 rpg) and Kysen Klinker (6.6 ppg, 6.0 rpg) to graduation, but besides rebounding, Witte feels his club will be just fine.
“We lost our bigs in Lane (6-7) and Kysen (6-5), and that’s tough, but we are a lot quicker than we were this season,” Witte said. “We still have a little height, but rebounding is at the top of the list of the things we are going to have to take care of. ... We have about 60% coming back already with varsity experience, but those other 40% played 25 or so games this summer, so the speed of the game won’t be a surprise.”
Returning for his fourth varsity season will be two-time Times Boys Basketball Player of the Year and first-team selection, Paxton Giertz.
Giertz averaged an area-best 21.6 points to go along with 5.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 2.5 steals. He made 104 3-pointers and shot 82.4% from the free-throw line.
Going into this season, Giertz will be nine points away from passing Garrett Callahan (2002-06) for second place on the program’s all-time list and 148 shy of surpassing the 1,847 scored by Seth Evans (2005-09) to become Seneca’s all-time leading scorer.
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Seneca also will rely on seniors Sebastian Deering (6-5, F) and Grant Siegel (6-2, F), juniors Brayden Simek (6-1, G), Matt Stach (6-1, F), Cameron Shriey (6-1, G), Brady Sheedy (6-2, G) – who averaged 7.3 points per game with 50 made 3-pointers last winter – and Zeb Maxwell (6-3, F), as well as sophomores Jesus Govea (5-9, G) and James Zydron (5-9, G)
“I’d be a horse-crap coach if I didn’t say we are going to rely on Paxton. I mean, in my opinion he is the best basketball player in the area,” Witte said. “We are going to do everything we can to give him as much support as he needs. Guys have to learn how to play the game through Pax, and that’s just the way it is. That said, there isn’t a program in the state, let alone the country, that doesn’t go into the season saying this is our No. 1 guy and we want the ball in his hands when it really counts. ...
“We are working on a lot of different defenses and also working on playing them aggressively without getting ourselves into foul trouble. We want to create offense with our defense, but I also think in the half court we’ll be better going to the rim and also shoot it a little better from the perimeter than we did last season.”
Seneca starts the season at the Serena’s Huskers Hardwood Tip-Off against Hall at 8 p.m. Monday, then Newark at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and Somonauk at 5:30 p.m. Friday. Place games will be contested Saturday.