‘A Bucket Away’ From A Championship Season, Parkway South Boys Hoops Back To Finish What It Started

Even though he saw his club go a 21-6 last season, which included an 11-game winning streak to start the season, a thrilling championship win in the MICDS Holiday Tournament, and another seven-game win streak right before the playoffs, boys basketball coach Mitch Stevens just can’t allow himself to stop thinking about the two baskets his team couldn’t get, which probably cost them both the conference and the district titles.

“Looking back, we thought we had a nice season, but we came up a little short twice,” Stevens said. “We were a bucket away from winning a championship twice.

“We lost in overtime to Lafayette. That cost us the Suburban West championship. Then we lost on a last-second shot (to Marquette) that cost us the district championship. So although we won some games, we felt like it wasn’t quite good enough.”

And that’s why the focus for the 2011-2012 season, which began for the Patriots with a road showdown against rival Parkway West High, is on finishing what they started last season, and hopefully adding some fresh new hardware to the school trophy case this season.

“Every year the goal here is to win conference, win districts, have a shot a state, and (ultimately) win the state championship,” Stevens said. “So what’s happened is we took that pain of not accomplishing our goal last year, and spin it into a positive and try to put it into a lot of hard work out here on the floor this year.”

Back to lead the Patriots on the floor this year, is a strong corps of seniors, which includes 6’7, 235-pound center Mark Waller, and 5’10, three-point shooting whiz Ryan McArthy.

Stevens said he expects his South crew to be a balanced scoring unit, but that he hopes to get a lot of points from both Waller and McArthy this season.

Also back and expected to start this year are senior forwards Charlie Bakula (6’5) and Eric Laurent (6’3), along with senior guard Reid Jackson (6’1) and another senior forward Sam Jaouni (6’2), who are also in the mix among possible starters for the Patriots this year. 

Underclassmen on the club include junior guards Courtland Rogers and Chinelo Tyler; junior forward James Calloway; sophomore forwards Chris Dandridge, Matt Highsmith, and Jeremy Verges; and sophomore guard Sam Rudnick.

“The key for us is going to have to be our depth and our defensive intensity,” Stevens said. “Defense will be really important, because one thing we’re going to try to do more this year is use our defense to create more offense for ourselves.”

And its clear by the way they practice every day after school and twice on Saturdays, that Stevens and his South crew couldn't wait to get this season started. 

“Obviously, we’re going to have to have Lady Luck on our side to stay healthy. But we’re going to be a team that works real hard and plays together every night. We lose our leading scorer, but with four starters back, I think we’ll be better.”