Seniors hope to lead Council Rock South boys basketball back to districts
Council Rock South seniors, from left, Alex Nordenholt, Ryan McNamee and Austin Thomas look to lead a veteran group of Golden Hawks to their first District 1 playoff berth since 2009. (Steve Sherman – 21st-Century Media)
SOUTHAMPTON – On the one hand, it looks like a whole new ballgame over at Council Rock South and on the other, it’s not.
For head coach Derek Wright, it’s his first year with the Golden Hawks, though he’s hardly a stranger to the Suburban One National League or the school district. After 14 years guiding CR North’s Indians, Wright announced in the offseason that he was flipping to South.
His team this year is coming off a 7-15 campaign, a sixth place finish in the SONL and has not made it to the District 1 playoffs since the 2008-09 season.
And yet, the Hawks look poised to reverse that trend in the current campaign. With eight seniors on the roster, plenty of size, an experienced point guard and three players who can carry the ball up the court, this could be a breakout season for the Golden Hawks.
Anchoring the front court for Rock South are twin towers Ryan McNamee and Ryan Boyd. Both are 6-6, though Big Mac is the beefier of the two forwards at 215 pounds. Spelling those two up front are 6-4, 190-pound senior Kenny Brightcliffe and 6-5, 190-pound junior Zach Shade, who will play both varsity and JV ball this season.
“With our height up front, offensive rebounds are going to be big for us this year,” said starting point guard Austin Thomas, a second team All-SONL selection last season.
“We’re pretty big this year and we have good chemistry.
“We’ve been playing together since seventh and eighth grade, whether it’s in AAU or here.”
Thomas (5-9) is also confident in his team’s ability to shoot.
“We have a pretty well-balanced shooting team,” he said. “Most of the guards, and even some of the bigs, can shoot it.
“That should be one of our strengths – being able to spread the floor this year.”
Of course, as with any team that’s led by Wright, it all starts with the defense.
“We’re going to pride ourselves on defense,” said Thomas. “Most coaches stress that but Coach Wright really makes a point to say that defense is going to win us games.
“Offense comes second.”
Regardless of the height he has on his current team, Wright wants this group to step outside of any limitations imposed by a tape measure.
“We have to play bigger than our size; we can’t just play our height,” said the coach.
“Rebounding is a mentality. You look at the team last year at North, we didn’t have any size at all but we rebounded the ball really well.
“We had some really aggressive, tough kids and we want to build that mentality here.
“When there’s a ball up in the air or on the floor, it’s going to be the tougher guy that gets it.”
When there’s pressure on the point guard, the Hawks will look to seniors Alex Nordenholt (5-11), a second team all-league selection last season and Kevin Newbert, who also has some size at 6-3, 190 pounds.
South is also looking for contributions from seniors Michael Krepich (6-0) and Shaun Smith (6-0), juniors Kyle Meakim (5-9), Christian Jabbar (5-10), Simon Magidenko (6-2), Trey Irvin (6-1) and Spencer Haun (6-4) along with sophomore Shawn Blank (6-1).
With eight seniors, Wright is looking for this team to have a special season.
“That’s part of the desire to face this challenge is to have this group have a really good senior year. What that looks like, I don’t know,” the coach said. “We talked to them a lot about success being more of an intrinsic feeling than whether we are a playoff team.
“I want them to feel good about what they’ve done at the end of the year.
Still, a district playoff berth would be nice.
“This group has never played in the playoffs so we hope we can have them see that and experience it this season,” said Wright.
Around the SONL, defending champ Abington has first team all-league picks sophomore Eric Dixon and junior Robbie Heath back. Pennsbury now has 6-8 senior Billy Warren – a recent transfer from Neshaminy – to complement the equally-as-tall Mark Flagg, Neshaminy and North have new coaches so league foes might have something to say about what kind of season the Hawks have.
“Top to bottom, I think it’s a pretty good league this year,” said Wright.
“I think Abington and Pennsbury probably have the most talent returning.
“But every year is different so there’s going to be a different mix of personalities on every team.
“We hope to compete with all of them.”
The eight seniors certainly hope so in this, their final campaign for Rock South.
“We want to go out with a bang,” said Thomas. “We want to say that South is known for basketball and once we graduate, we want to say that we did our thing.
“Whether it’s winning or going out there and competing every night, we just want to go out there and give it our all and see where that takes us.
“I think we’re going to have a great season,” added Nordenholt. “Everything is going to come together this year and we’re going to turn a lot of heads and run up on the league.
“I think we can win it.”
Contact Steve Sherman at ssherman@21st-Centurymedia.com or @BucksLocalSport on Twitter
