Cardinals look to regain conference champions title

by Doug Sands

Preparation for the coming basketball season officially began this past week for the Eleva-Strum Varsity Boys’ team. The Cardinals are taking to the courts, eager to take the conference by storm this year.

Head coach Joshua Skoug worked the team for everything they’ve got in their first week of practice. Only five days into their practice schedule, the boys had already gone through ten full practices. The grueling two-a-day practice schedule- one before and one after school- shows the level of dedication that these boys are putting into their team.

Caleub Watkins, a senior point-guard on the team, has been playing on the Varsity squad for three years. Watkins, like the rest of the Cardinal team, was all but exhausted by the end of the first week of practice.

“We’re working on our conditioning so that we can get up and down the floor pretty fast,” Watkins explained.

This comes as no surprise to Eleva-Strum students. Coach Skoug is well known even beyond the basketball team for his relentlessness during the basketball season. However, Skoug has been working the team harder than usual this year to make up for a definite weak point on the team: a lack of height.

“We’re pretty small in size,” admitted Watkins. “Gage [Everson] is our tallest player who isn’t a sophomore.” 

Everson, though tall, is no comparison to the height that the Cardinals had with players like Evan Runkel last year. Coming off the 2013-14 season has been difficult; last year’s graduating class took almost all the height the team had. 

Even in the face of this challenge, Watkins isn’t intimidated. “We’re going to have to overcome that by being up-tempo, forcing teams into turnovers, and coming up with fast-break lay-ups.” 

Cardinal player Gage Everson isn’t intimidated either. He’s ready to take to the courts to bring the rest of the team up to par in preparation for the season. Everson explained that the team was both experienced and yet a little young. “We’re a little of both,” stated Everson. “We certainly have guys returning, and we also have guys that will be experiencing it for the first time. Hopefully, the returning guys will help guide the guys that haven’t had as much experience.”

There are seven seniors on the team this year. One of them- quick-footed Jimmy North- is out until January as he heals from an ACL injury. These seniors are going to be vital to the team’s success. “Our returning seniors that have had Varsity experience before will have to be the guys that step up and carry us this year,” Skoug stated. He noted Caleub Watkins, Gage Everson, and Kelton Olson have all had extensive Varsity experience in the past. Skoug also included returning letter-winners Hunter Ryskoski and Matt Higley as leaders on the court. “We have some experience coming back, and those guys have been working hard so far,” stated Skoug. “They’re going to have to carry us, especially early in the season.”

When asked what he and his coaching staff have been focusing on in the early practices, Skoug replied, “Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Defense and fundamentals; that’s what we work on in the early season.”

Watkins expanded on that idea by saying, “We’re trying to get fluent with the ball, knowing where we all are when we’re on the floor.”

Everson noted that the team had been doing well so far in practices: “We’ve had a good start. There’s still definitely a lot of room for improvement, as the season is just getting started.” 

Skoug deeply agreed with Everson’s words about improvement. “But it’s early in the season,” Skoug said. “Every coach across the nation sees the same weaknesses that I do.”

The one major weakness that the Cardinals will battle this season is their lack of height. Coach Skoug himself admitted, “We don’t have any size whatsoever.” 

In high school basketball, an issue like this is huge. “It makes a very big difference, especially later in the year when we’re trying to make a tournament run,” explained Skoug. “It always helps to have a couple guys that are big inside to shore up the defense.”

While the lack of height poses a problem for the Cardinals, there isn’t much the team can do to outright fix it. Instead, they will have to mold their team away from the height aspect to focus on speed. “It will be interesting to see what we can do this year to overcome our obstacles,” Everson admitted.

Watkins also noted that game-night pressure might cause troubles as well. “We may have guys that aren’t really used [to being] under pressure,” Watkins said. “But we’ll get it to work. We’ve got to get after it in practice and in games. We’ve got to push it and have each others’ back at all times. If we fall apart as a team, we won’t do anything.”

Though they may be at a slight disadvantage this year, this Cardinal team is not to be underestimated. There are still a lot of strengths just waiting to come out this season.

“We have a lot of quickness,” Skoug stated. “We have a lot of returning guys with experience, so we should be smart. We work hard, and that’s always important.”

“We have a lot of offensive skill,” Watkins added. He noted that even the younger players had good offensive foundations as well. “We can outwork and outsmart other players.

Against the rest of the Conference, there is one other advantage that the Cardinals can call their own: most of the Varsity team has been playing basketball together since elementary school.

“We’re a very close group,” Everson admitted. “We’re all friends. We hang out when we’re not at practice. That will help us out as far as chemistry on the court.”

“They’re a scrappy group of kids,” Skoug said. “They’re pretty athletic, pretty quick, and a lot of fun to coach right now.”

With the preseason quickly approaching, some Cardinal players are already looking ahead to their tougher regular-season games. “Gilmanton will be a pretty tough game,” Watkins admitted. Truly enough, everyone at Eleva-Strum is interested to see how last year’s tied Conference Champs face off on the court this season. “They’re supposed to be good,” Watkins admitted of the Panthers. In addition to the Gilmanton match, Watkins also mentioned the match against age-old school rival Blair-Taylor.

In response to this, Skoug stated, “We don’t prepare for any individual opponent. During the season, we’re going to do the things that we’ve been doing since I’ve started. We’re going to focus on controlling the tempo of the game with our press, hopefully creating the tempo that we want to play at. We do what we do, and we hope that we can do it better than the other team can.”

With big goals in mind, this Cardinal team has their eyes to the sky. “Conference Champs is the first goal for sure,” Watkins said. 

Everson added they hoped to, “make a good run in the playoffs if we can.” 

Skoug said simply that he always has big goals for the team. These goals, which he declined to share, will help him shape this Cardinal team into a winning force on the court.

With a full 22-game regular season, the community has plenty of chances to come out and support this Varsity team. 

“Have our backs,” Watkins said to the community. “Be at every game, and be loud.”

Everson echoed his thoughts as he asked community members simply to, “come and support us.”

The team went on a 17-3 tear in the first quarter in its season-opener with Durand and held the lead through the final buzzer, notching a 52-45 non-conference victory over the visiting Panthers on Tuesday night, Nov. 25.

Durand bounced back to outscore the Cardinals in two of the remaining three quarters, but the hot start by E-S was enough for the home squad to keep the game in hand.

The Panthers found their shooting touch in the second quarter, putting 15 points on the board to the Cards’ 12 to make the score 29-18 at the half. E-S continued its steady offensive play into the second half, taking timely shots and finishing around the rim to score in double-digits in the third and fourth quarters.

Durand’s Jake Dunbar knocked down five 3-pointers in the game, but E-S countered with a balanced team effort that saw eight players contribute to secure the win.

Senior Caleub Watkins led the Cardinals with 12 points followed by fellow senior Kelton Olson with eight points and twins Aspen and Hunter Ryskoski with seven points apiece.

E-S took to the road for another non-conference game on Monday, facing neighboring Osseo-Fairchild. In a game of a close start, Eleva-Strum finished strong against the Thunder. At the end of the first quarter, the home team boasted a 1-point edge over the Cardinals, but Eleva-Strum took advantage of their time at the foul line to outscore O-F 24-8. Heading into the locker room, the Cardinals had taken a heavy lead of 37-22. Things only improved from there as the Cardinals kept in stride with the Thunder before tipping their lead over the edge in a 15-11 contest within the final quarter of play and claiming victory with a 64-46 finish.

The Cards will head to Gilmanton for their Dairyland Conference opener on Thursday, Dec. 4.

Beth Kraft contributed reporting to this story.

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