Young Golden Eagle squad ready for challege of competitive OCC boys Capital basketball campaign

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Will youth have its day on the hard­wood at Big Wal­nut this season?

A young Golden Eagle bas­ket­ball squad, under the direc­tion of second-year head coach Eric Myers, is look­ing for­ward to the chal­lenge of com­pet­ing in what promises to be a very com­pet­i­tive Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion boys bas­ket­ball race.

Myers, who led Big Wal­nut to a 12–10 mark last sea­son, returns only three return­ing let­ter men, all starters, from a team that tied Delaware Hayes for fourth place with a 7–7 record in the OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion a year ago.

Back for the Golden Eagles are 6-foot-6 senior Adam Sha­heen, 6–1 senior Zach Laugh­man and 6–2 senior Car­son Chat­ter­ton. Sha­heen aver­aged 8.5 points and a team-leading 7.6 rebounds per game, Laugh­man aver­aged 6.2 points and Chat­ter­ton 2.4 points and 2.6 rebounds.

Sha­heen, who returns after earn­ing Hon­or­able Men­tion All-OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion and All-District 11 hon­oree, joins Laugh­man and Chat­ter­ton as one-year let­ter winners.

Sha­heen was pre­sented with the Rebound Award, Chat­ter­ton the Hus­tle Award and Laugh­man was the recip­i­ent of the Most Improved Player Award

“The Cap­i­tal Divi­sion sched­ule will be a grind night in and night out,” Myers said. “Espe­cially with the addi­tion of Olen­tangy to what was already a strong division.”

Olen­tangy Orange and Mount Ver­non shared the divi­sion title with 11–3 records. New Albany claimed this place with a 10–4 mark.

“New Albany and Mount Ver­non are tra­di­tion­ally very strong and both pro­grams return key play­ers,” Myers said. “Hayes has guard Mike Wells back who has the poten­tial to be one of the most excit­ing play­ers in Cen­tral Ohio and will keep Delaware in contention.”

Big Wal­nut will have to over­come inex­pe­ri­ence with the loss of four seniors, includ­ing Grant Beam, Tyler Beam and Seth Wan­dling as well as Trent Martin.

Tyler Beam, a four-year let­ter win­ner, was the recip­i­ent of the Golden Eagle Award while Grant Beam, a three-year let­ter win­ner, earned the Defen­sive Player of the Year Award. Wan­dling was a three-year let­ter win­ner and Mar­tin a one-year let­ter winner.

Grant Beam, who aver­aged a team-leading 12.4 points per game last sea­son, capped his Big Wal­nut career by being selected a First Team All-OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion, First Team All-District 11 and Divi­sion II Third Team All-Central Dis­trict. Tyler Beam, who backed Grant Beam by aver­ag­ing 9.4 points per game, a Spe­cial Team All-OCC, Sec­ond Team All-District 11 and Divi­sion II Hon­or­able Men­tion All-Central Dis­trict honoree.

“Our lack of var­sity expe­ri­ence will cer­tainly be a chal­lenge, espe­cially early in the sea­son,” Myers said.

Last sea­son, the Golden Eagles over­came a 2–6 start to win 10 of their last 13 starts before los­ing to Bishop Wat­ter­son in the Divi­sion II Cen­tral Dis­trict Sec­tional finals

Myers will look to seven new­com­ers, includ­ing 6–0 junior Logan Boyd, 6–2 junior Jeremy Bok, 5–11 junior Nick Her­bert, 6–3 sopho­more Zac Asher, 6–0 junior Chase LaVeer, 5–9 junior Grant Burks and 5–10 sopho­more Michael Buck­les, to fill the holes and give the Golden Eagles needed depth.

Boyd, Her­bert, Asher, LaVeer, Burks and Buck­les earned junior Var­sity let­ters as mem­bers of the Golden Eagle reserve squad last season.

Big Wal­nut opens its 2012–13 sea­son on Fri­day, Novem­ber 30, trav­el­ing to Buck­eye Val­ley for a 7:30 p.m. non-conference con­test with the host Barons. The Golden Eagles open their home sched­ule on Mon­day, Decem­ber 3, in a non-league con­test with Utica at 7:30 p.m.

Myers’ troops make their OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion debut on Fri­day, Decem­ber 7 with rival Olen­tangy. Tip-off is 7:30 p.m.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.