By John Raffel
Correspondent
LAWTON – Coach Matt Smith’s Lawton boys basketball team opened is season Monday with a 38-23 win over Marcellus.
Lawton plays in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and last year finished the season at 14-11.
“We completed the year by winning our third straight district championship, but also had key wins throughout the season over Kalamazoo Christian, Paw Paw and Vicksburg,” Smith said. “We graduated three seniors last year, one of which was our starting point guard Luke Leighton. Luke was a huge contributor for us ever since he was moved up to varsity as a sophomore. He was a phenomenal floor general for us that could control the ball and the pace of the game for us as well as accepting key defensive roles against other great players.
“We return six key players from last season in Parker Vanpetegham, Aiden O’Brien, Nolan Collins, Nolan Camp, Connor Triemstra and Cole Burk. Each will play a very important role for us moving forward this year, as Parker returns as our leading scorer. Both Nolan Collins and Cole Burk will continue to control the inside game for us as our outside threats in O’Brien, Triemstra and Camp look to have another successful season as well.”
Lawton is battling through hangover injuries that linger from our extended football season.
“Ten of my 12 players this year were a part of our playoff football team,” Smith said. “We are working through a lot of unknowns at the moment in regards to who will be healthy and who will fill certain specific roles for us, but with a group that just finished an amazing fall football season we always know that they are ready to dig in and compete when the time comes. They are a very intelligent and competitive group of young men, they are not going to back down from a fight.
“We return all of our highest percentage shooters from last season, and we will continue to look to capitalize on that very stat moving forward throughout this season. Collins and Burk are also veterans for us now down low, and we are looking to have a very strong game working the ball both in and out. After a long football season for most of my team we need to get healthy, we need to kind of hit refresh while also getting in basketball shape. The team has done an amazing job so far of pushing themselves and I believe we will be right where we need to be when it comes time for the big moments.”
The SWAC “is flat out brutal,” Smith said. “It makes for a brutal schedule because there are no easy games….and within our division within the conference we will be playing Hackett, Schoolcraft, K-Christian, Parchment and Constantine all twice this season both home and away. And those are just our division teams. You then have Watervliet, South Haven, Allegan, Bridgman and Saugatuck that will all be strong and still in conference. The SAC is absolutely loaded with basketball talent.”