Lester Prairie 61 Sibley East 54: Five Things to Know

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Lester Prairie Bulldogs improved to 5-1 on Friday with a seven point win over a tough Sibley East team. Here are five things to know!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>One. Trever Schauer is a Strong Prospect</strong>. Schauer has grown to about 6-foot-3 and he's looking like a top 50 potential prospect in the state. His growth spurt has opened a lot of doors for him. First of all, he is finishing above the rim now with ease. He also had five blocked shots because his timing and reach are excellent. That height also played a part in the five threes he hit. Trever has a lighting quick release and this is a kid with strong ball handling skills because he's been a point guard all his life. Trever scored 28 points with eight rebounds, four assists, and those five blocks and he shot 9 of 14 from the field forcing nothing. Watch this young man close, he's improving every day and his status as a prospect is growing rapidly. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Two. The Return, of Vaughan! </strong> We all watched the wonderful Braham run led by Bob Vaughan in past years and Coach Vaughan did that with his sons Josh and Tyler as two of his better players over that run. Tyler, who played at Minnesota State-Moorhead and coached most recently at Sioux Falls, has taken over the Sibley East program and seemingly has the group on the right track (Josh is an assistant at Northern State). Even though we are so young in the season I was greatly impressed with the stuff that Sibley East ran, the ball movement they used, the activity of their offense, and so on. Sibley East is still short on talent but they played a very good Lester Prairie team close. Keep an eye on Coach Vaughan, the next generation! </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Three. Bulldogs are a Constant</strong>. The amount of respect I have for Lester Prairie athletics is immense. As some of you know I was a teacher at Lester Prairie for 14 years. I consistently tell the story of going to the weight room in early August one summer, looking at what the football program had to work with and saying "no way they can make winners out of these dudes". And that became a two loss team. Lester Prairie went to the state tournament in football once again this year, and they are 5-1 on the basketball season coming into the season as Minnesota River Conference favorites despite being the league's smallest school. When I tell you the average number of students per grade is 25 I'm not stretching the truth, I lived it for 14 years. This school basically has ten boys per grade to pick from for sports and they consistently win (and they don't play many schools their size). Andrew Dahl has done a wonderful job with this program. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Four. The Bulldog Support</strong>. It took more than Schauer to win this game and Mr. Football finalist [player_tooltip player_id='962294' first='Tanner' last='Scheevel'] (a three or four sport athlete who is a great basketball defender, one of the ten best football players in Minnesota, and the elite rodeo rider in Minnesota high schools) sat most of the contest with foul trouble. Who stepped up? My favorite frontcourt duo in the entire state, juniors [player_tooltip player_id='2093701' first='Connor' last='Radtke'] and Alek Hodney. You have to forgive my bias, I worked with both of these kids for many years as their teacher. And I am very proud of both of them. But the words spoken here have nothing to do with bias, if Connor and Alek don't step up, Lester Prairie doesn't win this game. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Radtke continues to grow and grow as a 6'5 junior post that has a no-nonsense approach. He just works hard and gets results. Connor has a nice face-up jumper touch and he finishes around the basket well using his pivot to get better angles quite well. He scored a dozen points, grabbed seven boards, and what really caught my eye was his feel as a passer. Connor had four assists as he consistently makes the right pass, the right read. It could be a quick reversal, a high post feed to the wing, or back to the basket kickout. Whatever it was Radtke made the correct reads. And when Scheevel went to the bench early, the activity from Hodney went up. Alek scored six buckets early forcing Sibley East to get support to him quicker which opened up other Bulldogs. Hodney had eight points and six boards, and overall this season Alek has been the team's second leading scorer. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Five. Wolverine Talent</strong>. As Sibley East continues to improve running their stuff teams need to watch them even closer. Count me as a big fan of junior guard [player_tooltip player_id='2256383' first='Joseph' last='Ballalatak']. He is a coach on the floor verbally directing and doing a great job of executing Coach Vaughan's stuff. Ballalatak hit five threes scoring 23 points and while his assist count total wasn't huge, he made so many excellent reads giving his team a chance. He's also got some of the strongest legs you will see on a guard. Six-foot-5 combo forward Zachary Kettner has to play the inside/out role and Kettner does a nice job with it facing up with comfort but also scoring around the basket. Kettner had 15 points and nine rebounds. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->