DE PERE (WLUK) — Last season the West De Pere boys basketball team won the Bay Conference title, but the Phantoms knew when starting this season they had quite a hill to climb.
The Phantoms had to replace four starters from last year’s team and they were moving conferences, switching to the Fox River Classic. This looked like it would take some time to find its place in the FRCC, but turns out, not at all.
Approaching the midway point of the conference season West De Pere is in a three-way tie for first in the FRCC with De Pere and Notre Dame.
“Coming in this season, no one really believed in us outside of us,” said senior Patrick Greisen, who is averaging 12.2 points per game. “We all knew that we were going to be a competitive team and we know what we had, and we showed that and we’re going to keep doing it.”
“Obviously, we’re gonna believe in ourselves and the mentality for us is like, ‘Why not us?,'” senior Erik Bouchard said. “I mean, obviously we lost these starters, but you know we have to come in and be better. We’ve been doing that right now.”
With its 6-1 conference record are the Phantoms thinking conference title or is it too early?
“We’re going to take one game at a time,” Bouchard said. “You know, we’ve got to play East De Pere, Bay Port, Notre Dame, Sheboygan North again and then all the other teams we haven’t even played yet. It’s going to be a challenge, but we’re looking forward to it.”
West De Pere is in a tie for the FRCC lead despite having to replace four starters from last year’s team. (WLUK)
One of the big reasons for West De Pere’s success this season is its balance scoring. The Phantoms have four players averaging at least 12 points per game and another chipping in at nine points per game. This had made West De Pere a hard team to guard.
“The defense has to plan for all of us,” Bouchard said. “Because of that, I get opportunities, my teammates get opportunities. And if, say, Carson (Samson) or Cooper (Borowicz) , Patrick, Jack (Wilichowski), anyone’s driving it, they’re going to have to help on them because they’re so good at scoring to it. It gives me an opening kickout look.”
One of those key players is Bouchard, who last year was on the JV team as a junior. He’s had to wait his time and now he’s making an impact, averaging 13.5 ppg. (second on the team behind Samson’s average of 13.6 ppg.). Furthermore, he has made 22 of 45 3-point shots for 49 percent.
Coach Todd Deschane said there just wasn’t room last season for Bouchard so he had to practice patience.
“We just talked to Erik and he said, ‘Hey, we can’t get you a lot of minutes this year, maybe next year is for when you get into playing time,'” Deschane said. “He said, All right and he jumped at it. He went and played JV the whole time.
“He suited up varsity for the varsity games as a reserve player, bought into his role, came in this year and improved over the summertime continuously and it showed up now on the court.”
And he’s helped make the Phantoms a conference title contender.
Follow Doug Ritchay on X @dougritchay
0 Comments