By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
For the past four seasons, Kyle Pock has been the face of the Bolivar boys basketball program.
That tends to happen when you become the school’s all-time leading scorer, lead your team to two district titles and state a runner-up finish, earn three all-state selections — including Class 5 Player of the Year honors — and ultimately sign with Northern Iowa.
Now that Pock has graduated, coach Robby Hoegh’s squad will have a noticeably new look this winter — and that means they have a chance to create a brand-new identity.
So, what will that look like? Well, it’ll have a little bit of an international flair.
“Read a good book called ‘Every Moment Matters’ this summer and the author references Sisu, which is a Finnish word that has no direct translation,” Hoegh said. “The Finnish people are known to go swimming in arctic temperatures. They also faced off against the Soviet Union during World War II and held them off. It is described in numerous ways. One way is Sisu is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain that courage even if it is irrational by every metric. I would love for our team to pursue irrational strength of will and determination and perseverance even in the face of the most dire situations. When I think of Sisu, I think of maybe the world’s first meme. You know — the one of the stork who has the frog halfway down their throat, but the frog’s arms are out the neck squeezing the neck? That is some irrational perseverance. Let’s operate with that.”
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With that mentality guiding them, the Liberators are gearing up for their final season in the Ozark Conference. They will be a founding member of the brand-new Ozark Mountain Conference for the 2024-25 school year.
“The OC is a great league with outstanding coaches and even if you have a talented team that is having a great night, it is a league where anyone can get you,” Hoegh said. “The requirement of that type of focus and effort is what helps teams get better.”
While the Liberators graduated the majority of its top contributors from last season’s 17-10 team, they’ll have four players who started for at least a portion of the season.
Junior Gardner Casey (5-foot-10), senior Damean Young (5-foot-9), senior Drake Durham (6-foot-2) and senior Trenton Patke (5-foot-10) combined to average just over 12 points a game for the Liberators — with Casey accounting for 7.5 of them.
“All of them are very competitive kids who like playing with a level of aggression,” Hoegh said. “Casey, Patke and Young are each guards, while Drake is more of a forward. If these four guys embrace kind of the ‘we-don’t-have-a-best-player’ mantra and we just want to all make winning plays for the team, that is going to be the biggest thing for us.”
The Liberators will also look for immediate contributions from seniors Jason Wilkinson, Ethan Graves and Seth Martin, who will all be competing in their first full varsity season.
“Jason has a chance to be a critical rebounder for us and Ethan can give us some shooting from the forward position,” Hoegh said. “Seth Martin is another senior guard who absolutely battles and competes each possession.”
Hoegh said junior guard Kanton Fisher “is a capable shooter” who could also make an impact.
“We don’t have Kyle’s basketball talents — and you cannot replace those things,” Hoegh said. “But if we can do the things Kyle did — compete as hard as we can, invest in those around us and maintain good and useful thinking … then we are going to have fun playing basketball with one another and will work hard every day to get better in the pursuit of our potential.”
Bolivar and Nixa will travel to Kickapoo for a jamboree on November 15.
The Liberators will open the regular season at the Willard Basketball Classic, which begins November 29. Their home opener is December 5 against Helias Catholic.
“We have a schedule where it is easy to get caught up in what is occurring on the scoreboard, but the mark of truly great competitors is based on their ability to bring the best out of their opponent — regardless of time and score,” Hoegh said. “The message is simple, the execution is difficult. Play as hard as you can — treat other people really, really well — have a Sisu mindset.”
