Plainsmen open bball season against Hershey

Shawn Cole’s Perkins County Plainsmen will open their 2019-20 season campaign at home Thursday night against the Hershey Panthers.

They will follow that up with a road trip to Wray, Colorado on Friday.

Cole said he will rely on an eight-man rotation on his varsity lineup to begin the season. A total of 15 kids are on this year’s team. 

Of that varsity core, half will be underclassmen.  

The Plainsmen were scheduled to play a preseason Hall of Fame jamboree game at Hitchcock County Nov. 26.

The game was cancelled due to last week’s weather. 

Cole said the game would have been beneficial to help his younger players get by the first-game butterflies. 

But what he was more concerned about was losing two practices due to the weather. 

That practice time was of more value than the preseason game, he said.

The eight-man rotation includes sophomores Triston Hite, Hayden Foster, and Hunter Garner, junior Ian Piquet and seniors Caleb Lagler, Alex Poppe, Carson Thelander and James Garner.

Hunter and James Garner moved into the district over the summer from Oberlin, Kansas and participated in summer league with the team, giving Cole some added depth. 

That depth will be key for Cole’s game plan that calls for running the floor and using pressure defense to offset their lack of size.

With that depth, he can bring in fresh legs throughout the game.

Opening Weekend

Cole said Hershey will be big and always plays hard. While they lost some players to graduation, they always seem to just reload, he said.

One of their returning guards led the conference in three-pointers last season so he knows they can shoot.

Cole said Wray will be more of an unknown. They have a new coach this year and for the last two years, the game with Wray was cancelled due to weather. 

So he doesn’t really know what to expect other than the fact that Wray is always a tough place to play. 

As for the SPVA conference, he looks for Bridgeport, Chase County and St. Pat’s to be the strongest going into the season. 

Tipoff against Hershey will begin at 3:30 p.m. MT for boys and girls jayvees, followed by the girls varsity and boys varsity games. 

Action begins in Wray at 4 p.m. MT with the jayvee games. 

Other team members on the squad this season include freshmen Desmond Hastings, Tony Lyon, Ethan Sihm, Casey Hanson, Storm Peterson and sophomores Jeb Kohl and Erik Snyder.