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After
graduating a ton of seniors a year ago, including a
thousand point scorer in Kyle Pipenger.
The Tri-Village Patriots will
look to reload and that will start with senior Tyler Cook. CNO file
photo
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Patriots look to reload from a year ago
By George Starks
NEW MADISON - The motto for Tri-Village in 2014 is a simple one.
‘New team…Same Dream.’
When Tri-Village ended the 2013 season, the curtain fell on the end of
some great careers.
The names were those of some of the best.
Pipenger, Werner, Brubaker and Wilcox, just to name a few.
Now the Patriots will not be looking to rebuild but they will reload.
Returning from that team will be a core group that will look to take
the ball and run with it.
“We lost some good kids and good players,” said Patriots coach Josh
Sagester. “We will have a lot of new faces on the court. The kids
that just left us (graduated) put in a lot of time here over the past
three or four years. The good thing is we have the horse in the middle
back (Tyler Cook). When you have an all-state post kid coming back,
it’s a nice, comforting feeling knowing you’re going to get some
consistency on the offensive and defensive end. That is a good thing
just knowing you have that presence in the paint.”
Another player Sagester will look to is 6-4 junior Colton Linkous,
brother of Kayla Linkous, now playing at Cedarville.
“Colton gave us some solid minutes off the bench last year as a
sophomore,” Sagester stated. “His role will change this year for us. He
is going to take on more of the Pipenger role of scoring points for us
and making other players better. He’s big enough to give teams a
problem and we expect him to give teams fits because of his size. He’s
the perfect size to take you in and post you up or he can spot up from
the outside and score. Last year, he took a lot of pressure off
Pipenger and he has a scorer’s mentality. We’re expecting a lot from
him this year. He comes from good stock.”
Along with Tyler Cook, there is another Cook (Damien), the son of Scoob
Cook who played for the 1990-1991 teams with the ‘91 team going to the
state finals and eventually losing to St. Henry.
“Both these kids come from great stock,” Sagester stated. “Damien is a
solid all-around player. He was injured last year and sat out almost
half the season. Right now, he looks to be healthy and ready to go.
He’s big and very athletic, just like his dad. He’s 6-4 now, but was a
guard most of his life and now he’s shot up and things have changed for
him. So he’s got the combination of being able to handle the ball out
front, make good passes and play the post as well.”
On the perimeter will be Tyler VanWinkle. Last year, VanWinkle ran the
show for the junior varsity. Along with VanWinkle will be senior Tommy
Bell.
Both kids are solid at the guard position, according to Sagester.
On the bench will be Mason McCabe, another force to be dealt with
according to Sagester.
“Mason is another, big, long, athletic shot maker,” said Sagester.
“He’s about 6-3 so we have pretty good size across the board. We relied
on our bench last year and we have some younger kids that can give us
some minutes.”
Tri-Village, like so many other small schools, will be going from an
experienced team to a youthful group.
“That’s par for the course at small schools,” said Sagester. “It’s the
nature of the beast. It goes in cycles and you hope the tradition goes
on here. We call it the next man up mentality. No one wants to be on
the team that can’t win basketball games here and Tri-Village has that
tradition of winning. These kids have worked hard.”
The question at T-V is simple but not easy to answer.
Can the Patriots take their game to the next level after falling in the
regionals to Troy Christian at Trent Arena in Kettering?
“I don’t know,” said Sagester. “That’s the million dollar question.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me that and I really don’t think you can
forecast 26-0. We hit timely shots last year to win games and a lot of
luck. We were down big to Franklin Monroe at Franklin Monroe and came
back to win. Pipenger hit for 12 or 14 points to pull that game out for
us. The ingredients are there. We are young and just need to grow up. I
can say that I feel in my heart that we have the horses that can pull
the load. I’m very pleased with where we are right now. These kids know
they have big shoes to fill.”
Tri-Village will open the Cross County Conference season on the
road at Mississinawa Valley on November 29.
The Patriots will then host the Jets, a team they beat three times a
year ago in their home opener.
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