By Dana Harding (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The 2019-20 season proved to be another successful campaign for Mt. Vernon.
The Mt’Neers finished with a 20-11 record and captured a Big 8 Conference championship before falling to Pierce City in the district final.
Despite the district loss, head coach Mike Ray was pleased with his team’s development.
“We lost in the district championship in four overtimes — which was a heartbreaker — but I was proud of how hard that group of guys competed to the end,” Ray said. “As with all teams this season, we are grateful for any opportunity we get to compete and to go out and play as a team.”
In preparation for his sixth season at the helm, Ray will need to replace a strong core of seven graduated seniors.
Key losses for the program include all-conference and all-district honoree Cale Miller, Colby Johnston, Slater Eldridge and Zach Jones.
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“We lost an outstanding group of seniors last year that were keys for our program,” Ray said. “All were solid players who at one time last year led us in scoring in a game and allowed us to be an elite defensive team. We also lost valuable players in Kaden Killingsworth, Noah Duwe and Brentyn Hendley who helped us every day in practice and Kaden was a key contributor for our team off the bench.”
Mt. Vernon’s of key returnees will be led by Mason Ballay, an all-conference and all-district selection.
The 6-foot senior guard averaged 15 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists last season and could reach the 1,000-point career milestone in 2020-21.
“Mason has played in high-level varsity competition for three years,” Ray said. “We will lean on him for leadership on and off the court.”
6-foot junior guard Kai Brown also returns after averaging 8 points per game and playing a key defensive role for the Mt’Neers.
A third key returnee, 6-foot-4 senior Rafe Darter, will miss the season due to a football injury.
“[Darter] is a huge loss for our team as he had a great summer for us,” Ray said.
With a significant graduating class, a host of opportunities are open on the Mt’Neer roster, and Ray expects several newcomers to fill significant roles for the team.
“Newcomers who will be counted on this year include Curt Wendler, a 5-foot-10 guard who provides defense and outside shooting for us; Kyle Orr, a 6-foot-3 Senior who will provide defense and rebounding for us; Tristan Jones, a 6-foot-4 Junior who is a scoring threat inside for us and Sam Herbert, a 5-foot-9 guard who will run the point for us,” Ray said.
While Mt. Vernon will be largely young and inexperienced this season, Ray expects his team to be ready to compete each and every night in a schedule full of challenging conference and district opponents.
“Our expectations and standards each year is for our team to become the best version of themselves, to compete against ourselves and improve each day,” Ray said. “We have been fortunate in the past that we have had talent and those teams were able to win a lot of games so we are all measured against that but for now this group will strive to be as good as they can be and we will see where that takes us.”
Mt. Vernon opens its season Dec. 1 against Monett.
