By Becky Walz,
The bench may be small, but the talent is there for the Turkey Valley boys’ basketball team this winter.
The Trojans have just 10 members on the varsity squad, with two seniors and four juniors that saw a lot of time of the floor last season.
Leading the team this season is John Izer who takes over for Chris Sullivan who coached the squad for 10 years. However, Izer is not a new face on the bench as he has been a volunteer assistant for many years. Joining him on the bench will be assistant Levi Izer, along with volunteer coach Ethan Leibold.
Potential
The bench looked quite similar last season with TV fielding 10 athletes for the varsity squad, including two with quality minutes on varsity.
The Trojans could never get a long win streak going last winter, picking up no more than three wins in a row. They finished the conference slate third with a 12-4 record.
Turkey Valley started the postseason run with Kee. The Trojan offense was alive, leading 29-22 at half and winning 60-52.
That put the Trojans in the second round against Edgewood-Colesburg, In the end, Ed-Co was too strong for the Trojans, winning 72-52. Turkey Valley ended the season 14-7 overall.
Turkey Valley averaged 58.1 points per game last season. The Trojans shot 41.6 percent from the field, connecting on 425-of-1,022 attempts. They pulled down 28.2 rebounds per game. In addition, they added 251 assists, 234 steals and nine blocks.
Graduated
The Trojans lost just one player to graduation at the end of the season. Kalvin Langreck averaged 16.3 points per game to lead the team. Named first team all-conference last year, Langreck pulled down 2.5 rebounds a night and led the team in assists with 75 to go with 46 steals.
Core back
Nine of the 10 varsity members this season earned a letter last year.
Leading the way is senior Garrett Kurtenbach. He put up 14.0 points per game last year, along with pulling down 6.9 rebounds. He was second in steals with 51 and had 33 assists.
Dylan Reicks finished his junior campaign last year with a 5.7 point and 6.1 rebounds per night averages. He provided 37 assists and 35 steals.
Noah Hanson averaged 7.6 points a game last year, while grabbing 4.6 rebounds. He also led the team in steals with 55 to go with 63 assists. Calvin Bodensteiner put up 9.7 points per contest and pulled down 4.8 boards.
Providing 2.3 points and 1.8 rebounds a game was Chase Hayek, while Carson Busta put up 2.2 points a game and had 1.1 boards.Also back with a letter is Oliver Schmitt, Caleb Kurtenbach and Braylen Byrne. They will be joined by junior Russell Nieman.
Despite the small numbers, Coach J. Izer has a lot of reasons to be excited about the 2021-22 season.
“Our team strengths will be our chemistry and athleticism. We have high expectations to overcome our lack of height with the experience of returning players and will work hard to run deep into the postseason,” said Coach J. Izer.
When it comes to the Upper Iowa Conference race, the new coach believes his Trojans, along with South Winn, MFL MarMac and Clayton Ridge will hold the advantage.
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