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Boys' Basketball: Hounds program celebrates season at banquet
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Article RatingThe Shippensburg boys’ basketball program had plenty of reason to celebrate at last Thursday’s banquet at Shippensburg’s Premier Events: not one of its teams finished with a losing record.
Even the Greyhound’s JV team, which started the season 0-5, finished with an 11-10 record.
“Sometime after our loss to Big Spring, we talked about having a 5 a.m. practice,” coach Jerry Rosenberry said. “After that, they worked hard, turned around and had a winning season.”
Rosenberry proudly handed out individual awards to Jared Hamilton (Hustle Award), D.J. Rossman (Coach’s Award), Travis Faust (Defensive Player Award) and Tucker Wrights (MVP).
The seventh grade boys basketball team finished 7-7 and interestingly enough, the Greyhounds scored 418 points during the season, while also allowing 418 points.
“This group was a pleasure to work with,” coach Kevin Plasterer said. “Everyone brought something to the court.”
Plasterer reminded his kids to never stop working hard.
“Just because you made the seventh grade team doesn’t mean you’ll make the eighth grade team,” Plasterer said. “There are 30 other guys that are working hard and getting ready to try out next year.”
Individual award winners for the seventh graders were Jeremy Wray (Defensive Award), Mac Miller (Offensive Award), Brett Hasting (Leadership Award) and Jon Gerlach (Coach’s Award).
The eighth grade basketball team, coached by Greg Reed and Bruce Hess, finished 12-5, with four of its five losses coming by seven points or less.
Award winners for the eighth graders were Zach McMullen (Most Improved Award), Derek Herb (Hustle Award), Marshal Witmer (Offensive Award) and Zach Myers (Coach’s Award).
Ninth-grade coach Randy Van Scyoc, whose team finished 12-5, cracked a few jokes while talking about his team’s pair of games against Milton Hershey.
“We lost by 26 the first time we played them,” Van Scyoc said. “And then, when we played them at Shippensburg, we beat them by one.”
The crowd seemed impressed for the moment, but burst into laughter when Van Scyoc revealed, with perfect timing, that his team had won because seven of the Milton Hershey players were academically ineligible.
“It just goes to show you’ve got to keep your grades up,” Van Scyoc said. “My wife’s a teacher if you can’t tell.”
Ninth graders winning individual awards were Todde Statum (Defense and Rebounding Award), Tanner Hamman (Offensive Award), Dereck Mills (Hustle Award) and Taylor Nezat (Most Improved Award).
The final team presentation of the night was the varsity basketball team, which finished 14-10.
Shippensburg coach Ray Staver said that if a few things could’ve gone just a little bit differently, his team would’ve won quite a few more games.
“We had a difficult loss against Indian Valley, we had them on the ropes and we let them slip away,” Staver said. “And then we went out and lost to Camp Hill, that’s the difference between being 16-8 and 14-10. If you win 14 games, you’re going to get a No. 1, 2 or 3 seed in the playoffs.”
The Greyhounds have had 14 wins in each of the past two seasons, and as a result, have gotten knocked out in the first round of districts to the likes of state powers Susquehanna Township (2006-07) and Steel-High (2007-08).
The Greyhounds had five weather postponements this season, and by the time Christmas rolled around, Shippensburg had played just eight games.
Those postponements came back to haunt the Hounds in January, when their schedule was overloaded with games.
“We spent a lot of time playing in January and didn’t practice a whole lot,” Staver said. “And then we started to get sick. If there was a hospital between West Perry and Shippensburg, we would’ve stopped there after our game.”
And, as Staver explained, some of his team’s losses came from plain old bad luck.
Staver said, “We lost to Greencastle (now playing in the PIAA Tournament) by a last-second shot from a kid off the bench.”
Even with all of the unfortunate happenings of the 2007-08 season, Staver said he was proud of his group.
“This was a great group of kids to coach,” Staver said. “I’ll always think back to our Saturday mornings at The Hop.”
Of course, you can’t talk about about Shippensburg basketball without hearing the name of senior Craig Van Scyoc.
Van Scyoc piled up the stats and awards in his time for the Greyhounds, racking up 600 rebounds (second in school history to Matt Strine) and 1,258 career points.
“Forget about Craig’s statistics,” Staver said. “For a long time, the football team has needed somebody to step up. For Craig to show up and turn that team around, that showed how much work ethic he had. And then he’d come home from football every day and shoot 200-300 shots to get ready for basketball season — that’s what work ethic is.”
Coach Staver directed his attention to the children in the room.
“Young guys,” Staver began, “if you want a role model, I’d pick Craig Van Scyoc.”
The standing ovation Van Scyoc received nearly brought him to tears.
“First off, I’d like to thank my family for being there for me, especially my brothers and my teammates,” Van Scyoc said. “And I’d like to thank the coaches for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to play.”
In addition to Van Scyoc, four other seniors — Whit Crabtree, Luke Winter, Ricky Ott and Loren Horst — will be lost to graduation. All five will be attending college in the fall.
Receiving awards for the Greyhounds were Kyle Plasterer (Most Improved Award), Winter (Coach’s Award), Crabtree (Offensive Player Award) and Van Scyoc (MVP).
Shippensburg Athletic Director Shawn Chiappelli presented awards to those on the Academic Honor Roll: Taylor Corman, Hamilton, Kelly Hess, Horst, Joel Keller, Plasterer, Van Scyoc, Winter and Wrights.
