Small-School Conference up for grabs

By DONN ADAMSON
Daily Journal Sports Editor

PARK HILLS — The MAAA Small-School Conference has seen nothing but dominance by the West County Bulldogs for the past four seasons plus. The last time the Bulldogs lost a conference game was on January 30, 2004, giving them five straight conference titles and 42 conference wins in a row.

A big part of those titles came from the inside performance of Corey Whelehon and the point guard play of Terry Moore. Both of those players graduated along with starter Jake Gidden, leaving Coach Chad Mills with possibly a building year instead.

In Tuesday’s loss in the Thanksgiving Tournament against the Arcadia Valley Tigers, the Bulldogs became very suspect of walking away with a sixth straight Small-School title.

The Bulldogs have Tyler Stacy, known for his three-point shooting, returning, but from there the varsity experience becomes severely lessened, which probably will be a sign of weakness for the rest of the teams.

The question still to be answered is will the Bulldogs fall back to the rest of the pack, or will another team rise to the Bulldogs level? Either way, it should make for a very interesting and unpredictive season.

Arcadia Valley was the last team to win a conference championship (2003) prior to the Bulldogs dominance. The Tigers were also heavily affected by the 2008 graduation. Their win in this week’s tournament is not a precursor of conference success, but it is a confidence builder for last year’s second-place team.

The Tigers (8-2) will be led by returning starter Chris Robbs inside, and he will be joined by Erick Lindsey and Brock and Blake Walker with all four measuring 6’3”.

The Valle Warriors (6-4) will also have a say as to how things will turn out in the conference. The Warriors lost only two starters from their 2007-08 third-place team. The Warriors have two 6’4” players returning in Stephen Bauman and Bryan Kertz which should help them establish a strong inside game, and guards Michael Rozier and Adam Oberle will bring volumes of experience to the ball-handling portion of the game.

Last season there was quite a chasm between the top three teams and the bottom three teams with the Valley Vikings, Bismarck Indians and Kingston Cougars combining for a 5-23 record in conference play. Things may not be any better for the three since all three lost all but on starter to June’s thinning of the ranks.

Only Logan Midgett and Matt Pierce will be on the floor for Valley (3-7) as starters from last year’s squad. They will be joined by Tyler Parks who also had plenty of varsity play. All three are juniors.

Bismarck (2-7), having already lost their opening game, knows it has its work cut out for them if it wishes to be successful in the conference. Only Matt Franklin returns as a starter and along with Caleb Hagerty and Alex Politte, the three were the only ones with any varsity experience. The Indians are a very young team and this year most likely will be one of learning.

Kingston (0-9) shook off a dark shadow with their first win in five years early in last year’s season, but the Cougars went on to lose the next 15 for a second drought. As far as experience goes, things are not looking up for the Cougars. Only three-point shooter Frankie Guenther comes back as a starter, with eight of last year’s 12-man roster graduating this past June.