TVS Prepares for Season

This years South basketball team will be less experienced than last years, but Coach Augspurger is happy with the way the team played together in summer league and so he is looking forward to this winter's campaign. The team graduated 5 seniors off of last years team – which barely lost to the eventual state champs, Tri-Village. And that was only by a single basket scored in the last seconds of the game. So that is a lot of experience and talent to replace.

The team does return 2 year starters JJ Utz at point guard and Jacob Bassler at wing. Winston Crozier also had significant playing time last year as a 6^th man. The remainder of the team will be playing on the varsity squad for the first time. Mike Meyers, Jared Cottingim, Andrew Augspurger, Chad Ehler, Ryan Bassler, and Travis Lovely round out the rest of the roster. South will not have much height and so they will need to work hard on defense again this season.

“It is a less experienced team than last season's,” admitted coach Augspurger, “We had a good summer and the guys played well together. I am hoping to get a good start against the conference and get some early momentum going.”

Next he was asked for about competition in the league, “Tri-Village does have some new transfers and they become eligible in game 12 – the game that we play them. They are defending league and state champs, so they have to be favored again this year. They are definitely the team to beat in our league. Miami East will also be strong – as they have been for several years now. They have a lot of size. Bethel and Covington should also be improved from last season.”

An interesting wrinkle to this season – former TVS player, Dale Spitler Jr., will be coaching at North this year. It will be the second time in his career that coach Augspurger will coach against a former player of his. So the North – South game will be a bit more intense this year.

South will be hosting a tip off tournament again this season. This will be the weekend after Thanksgiving. So it will be a good opportunity for visiting alumni in town for the holiday to come back to the school and see this years edition of the team. The other schools will be Stivers, Eaton, and Dixie. The opening round will be Friday the 27^th with Eaton and Stivers playing at 6pm, followed by South and Dixie at 7:30. The consolation and championship games will be played Saturday night with the consolation at 6pm and the championship at 7:30pm.

The South girls team will be kicking off their season under new head coach, Jeff Case, at North the weekend before Thanksgiving. It will be a SWBL vs. CCC matchup. They will play Carlisle at 6pm. Then North will play Northridge at 7:30 that Friday (Nov. 20). Then Saturday it will South's turn to play Northridge at 6pm, while North plays Carlisle at 7:30pm.