Boys Basketball: Shawano hoping to use experience to advantage

SHAWANO — The Shawano Community High School boys basketball team heads into the new season hoping to use last year’s learning experiences as a guide to a better year.

The Hawks are coming off a 4-19 season in 2018-19. The team finished 1-13 in Bay Conference play.

Shawano still heads into the season optimistic as most of the players from that team are back for coach David Ambrosius.

“We return a lot of kids who played varsity minutes for us last year,” said Ambrosius. “We will be leaning on those learning experiences to help us take steps forward this year.”

Leading the way will be senior Carter Weisnicht, who made the all-conference second team last year.

Senior Nick Sherman, junior Kaleb Lowney and sophomores Ethan Schwitzer and Elliott Lowney are also back after starting games for the team.

Seniors Brayden Dickelman and Cody Nahwahquaw and junior Joe Mente also have valuable varsity experience and round out a strong core for the upcoming season.

“I think a lot of my younger teammates grew and became stronger over the summer and developed some more skills which is going to be a great help this year as we were a young team last year,” said Weisnicht. “Just going to take it game-by-game now that everyone has had the feel of what it is like at the varsity level. I think we are in store for a fun ride this year.”

Shawano is scheduled to open the regular season hosting Rhinelander on Tuesday.

Menominee Indian

Menominee Indian also comes into the season with an eye on improving.

The Eagles posted a 13-10 overall record and 3-9 mark in the Central Wisconsin Conference-East Division last season. With four senior starters back, Menominee Indian is hoping to make some history.

“We expect our senior leadership to be strong and anticipate their leadership carrying over some of the successes we encountered last season,” said coach James Oshkeshequoam.

Returning from last year’s starting lineup for Oshkeshequoam are seniors Tiger Dixon, Menom Powless, Norman Kakwitch and Raymond Fish.

Kakwitch was named to the CWC-East first team last season, while Powless was an honorable mention.

“On behalf of the seniors this year, we want to make this season a season to remember,” said Kakwitch. “As team captain, it’s my job to keep my guys under control and be a big brother to them. We all trust in what our coach says. I think we will shock everybody in the conference.”

To compete for a conference title and make a deep postseason run, the team will likely need a few other players to step up. Sophomore Allen Smith is among the group that will help the team try and reach some of its lofty goals.

The Eagles are set to open their season on Tuesday at Gresham.

Gresham

Like Shawano, Gresham is hoping some of the growing pains it faced last year can help the team to a better season this winter.

“We expect to compete at a much higher level then we did last year,” said Gresham coach Jeff Zobeck. “We were fairly young last year and many of the boys were given great opportunities to grow as players on the court.

“Our challenge is our schedule. We have a very difficult schedule to contend with this year. Last year’s inexperience did not allow us to compete at the highest level with the quality of our schedule.”

The Wildcats are coming off a 9-14 season in which the team posted a 7-5 mark in the CWC-North.

Gresham has a group of five players that return with experience on their side.

Junior Jake Hoffman returns after landing on the honorable mention all-conference team. Seniors Lyle Welch and Waylon Welch, junior Raven Bennett and sophomore Lukas Pecore are also back.

“For the Wildcats to have a successful season, we need to have dedication, devotion and to individually lift each other up to be an unstoppable team,” said Hoffman.

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