Although the Archbishop Murphy boys basketball team had its best showing ever at the Everett High School Summer Basketball League this month, the Wildcats were not satisfied.
The Wildcats beat three Cascade Conference opponents, Lakewood, Cedarcrest and Granite Falls, but also lost close games to Lake Stevens and Everett, games they felt they should have won. They went 3-3 in head-to-head play before losing to top seed Burlington-Edison in the first round of the playoffs.
“I was very impressed how our summer league went,” head coach Jerry Zander said. “(The Wildcats) were much better offensively than I anticipated. Right now we’re a solid shooting team. What we need to establish is an inside game, that’s where guys like (6-foot, 5-inch junior post) Ryan (Bourke) and (6-3 sophomore forward) J.D. (Melton) will come in. We’re not real tall, but of the guys we do have we’re very long. Long arms, lanky kind of kids that play a lot of basketball.”
Archbishop Murphy lost seven seniors to graduation off last year’s 6-14 team and return no starters. But the players coming in are hungry, Zander said.
Bourke would have started but missed almost all of last season with a broken ankle. Melton, a good shooter with a solid inside game, also missed time with an ankle injury. Other returnees include 5-10 junior point guard Jared Smith, 6-0 senior guard Tony Ackerman, 6-0 senior guard Nick Anderson, 6-1 senior forward Geoff Hunter and 6-5 junior forward Joey Clancy.
Nate Hards, a 6-1 sophomore guard and J.J. Quinlan, a 6-0 sophomore power forward who plays “much bigger than his height,” Zander said, are newcomers expected to contribute.
With many underclassmen in key roles, the Wildcats are still a work in progress.
“We look very, very good at times and we look very, very bad at times because of their inexperience and how young they are,” Zander said. “They make mistakes that are frustrating, mental mistakes that we’ll have to work out this summer.”
Despite the flaws, there appears to be more enthusiasm this summer for the program than ever.
“Every practice 30 kids are showing up,” Zander said. “We’ve never had that many.”
The Wildcats plan to work in a few games before they travel to Spokane for a team camp at Gonzaga, July 23-27.
The Northwest 2A District 1 is expected to be one of the toughest in the state and the Cascade Conference is wide open after favorite Kng’s High moved down to 1A.
Zander said the loss to Burlington-Edison was valuable because it showed how far the Wildcats need to go to be able to play with one of the top 2A teams.
“We’re going to have to work that much harder to close that gap,” he said, adding, “If we can compete within our district I’m pretty confident we’ll be competitive at the state level.”
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