Wildcats return experience, looking for improvement
After taking lumps last year, the Blair-Taylor boys basketball team is returning a number of key players with the hopes of picking up more wins.
Coach Randy Storlie is among the winningest coaches in the history of the state. His 646 career wins is tied for the fourth-most in state history with a chance to move into the top three this season with a good season. To do that, the Wildcats would need to improve off of last year’s record.
Storlie is 15 wins short of Bob Letsch, the former Racine St. Catherine’s coach, and is coming off of a 9-16 season with a lopsided loss in Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association play. But B-T returns much of its roster, including leading scorer Ethan Kniseley.
Kniseley, a guard, has been a varsity player since his freshman season and led the team with an average of 15.9 points per game last year, making 50 percent of his shots from the field and about 38 percent of his three-point attempts.
Seniors Tavian Shramek and Ryan Oldendorf were the team’s two leading rebounders last year. Oldendorf averaged 8.7 points and 6.7 rebounds, while Shramek had average of 7.4 points and 8.5 boards per game.
The team’s second-leading scorer was CJ Dummer, who averaged 11.7 points per game as a sophomore.
B-T’s season began on Tuesday with a home game against Whitehall, which started the season 1-0 with a win over Eleva-Strum last week. The Wildcats host Cochrane-Fountain City on Friday and play at Alma/Pepin in Pepin this coming Monday.