Maturity will help this year’s Eagles
Bennett confident second season of Veritas hoops will be much improved
Doug Bennett is confident Veritas Christian’s second season of varsity boys basketball will be better than its first.
The Eagles had no seniors and only two juniors a year ago when they finished 9-14.
“Last year, we had trouble late in the games when things got physical,” said Bennett, whose team opened practices this week. “Being so young, our lack of physical maturity hurt us. We won’t have that excuse this year.”
The Eagles caught fire at the end of last season, winning four of their final five games and finishing second in the KCAA Class 1A state tournament. Veritas, which opens the season Dec. 2 at the Flint Hills Preseason Tournament in Manhattan, returns four starters — junior post Mark Randtke, junior guard Casey Woods, senior guard Matt Steinle and junior guard-forward Andrew Bartlow.
The Eagles, however, will have to replace point guard Kirk Long. The team’s second-leading scorer moved before the school year.
“We have big shoes to fill there,” Bennett said. “We have three or four guys that could fill that position. One of the big advantages we have over last year is depth. We went about six deep. This year we can go nine or 10 deep.”
Veritas has added four new seniors to its roster, and Bennett thinks at least three of them — Noah Barclay, Paul Kempf and Derek Shapiro — will “make a big impact.” Kempf certainly did that for the Veritas football team after transferring from Lawrence High. He was the Eagles’ leading receiver and second-leading rusher.
The Veritas girls will play a junior-varsity schedule again this year.