By Chad Plein
Greenfield has had a succesful program with a winning record in each of the last eight seasons. But the Wildcats haven’t won a district game in the past two years. To change that, Greenfield will have to rely on a new-look team to get it done.
Matt McCarthy has lost four starters and a total of five lettermen from last year’s 14-12 team.
“We are young,” McCarthy said. “Pretty inexperienced besides Connor Lewandowski. We are going to have a lot of people playing a large amount of varsity minutes that have not seen minutes in the past. There may be a learning curve at the beginning of the year.”
The lone starter the Wildcats return is Lewandowski, who is a junior. The 5-foot-9 guard averaged 7 points per game but McCarthy hopes that total doubles this season to 14 a night.
“Connor is going to have to step up into a leadership role this year as he is the only starter coming back from last year,” McCarthy said.
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Helping Lewandowski for the Wildcats will be Aidan Taylor and Jacob Feezell, who McCarthy says has looked good in early practices. Taylor is a 5-foot-10 guard who saw limited time last year. McCarthy believes the 6-foot-3 Feezell could be the biggest guy on the floor each night.
Greenfield will also see a pair of juniors stepping into larger roles this year for the Wildcats. Tyler Howard (5-foot-11) and Isaac Vaughn (6-foot-1) both saw a little bit of varsity clock last year and are both expected to fill out the Wildcats starting five.
“We are going to have to be very good on the defensive end this season and that is where our focus is going to be,” McCarthy said. “I have been preaching from day one this year that we need to be the most disciplined team every night.”
Also expected to an impact for the Wildcats this season are freshman forward Xander Vaughn (6-foot-1) and junior guard Kyle Watson (6-foot).
“I have been very honest with our guys this year about how every win we have this year is going to be a close game,” McCarthy said. “There will not be games where we just blow people out. In order for us to be successful this year we are going to have to have low scoring contests where our discipline plays a part in.”
Greenfield opens at Crane on Nov. 20.
