Defense, Seniors Helping Young Panthers Adjust

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Facing a situation where six of the ten players listed on his opening night roster were going to be unavailable, Pinckneyville head coach Bob Waggoner was forced to look into his program's future for help with its' present.

Enter Hunter Queen, Dylan Hardin, C.J. Opp, Payton Nippe and Justin Bumann; the five underclassmen who have gotten their first real look at the varsity level as a result of recent suspensions that took place within the P.C.H.S. athletic program.

"You never know how kids are going to react to their first varsity experience," said Waggoner inside the P.C.H.S. coaches' office on Wednesday. "The big thing was we had seniors (that the younger players) could lean on - Shay (Kellerman), Jake (Bathon) and Nathan (Morton) - that could pick up the slack and tell those guys where to go."

The patchwork team not only held their own on the road January 5th against Waterloo (a 75-60 dismissal of the 5-11 Bulldogs), but returned home to pound Freeburg (a team Waterloo had beaten) this past Saturday 67-26 as the Panthers' defense held the Midgets to 29% shooting and forced 17 turnovers.

"The mark of our program is our defense - so if you guard and you rebound you have a chance to win, and that's the thing we've done in every game is we've guarded and we've rebounded," Waggoner said.

Immediately after the win over Freeburg, Waggoner was in good spirits, considering all that had happened in the week prior to that game. His team had just won a pair of contests that some felt they would struggle to compete in, and it seemed like maybe things were going to be alright after all.

Lost in the blowout contest over Freeburg, however, was a late play where Morton electrified the crowd with a two-handed slam dunk, yet came down hard on his left wrist. It was later revealed that Morton broke his scaphoid bone in the wrist, a bone situated at the radial (radius bone) side of the carpus, or laterally between the hand and the forearm in standard medical posture (thumbs pointing outwards).

"You know, the hits keep coming," Waggoner said, after admitting with a grin that his true initial reaction to news of the injury wasn't appropriate for print.

Morton is out for an undetermined amount of time, but is currently wearing a cast on the wrist of his non-shooting hand.

"There's no definite timeline on it," said Waggoner. "It's going to be up to him and his family, and I'm going to support them in whatever decision they make."

The Panthers got a couple of players back for the game at Sparta this past Tuesday, but were still missing over 40 points per game from their lineup after Morton was injured.

"You realize you've got to make adjustments," Waggoner continued, adding "even though he's out of the game and you're playing a team with a lot of confidence and that's playing really well with a chance to get a share of the conference lead, you just hope that you have players that can step up. One player is not going to make the difference, every kid needs to score two-to-four more points, every kid has to defend a little more, your bench kids are going to get an extra two minutes a game."

Kellerman, Bathon and junior Kyle Lamb were seemingly the ones who would have to get it done, and they did not disappoint their coaches or the Panther fans who made the chilly trip to Sparta. Pinckneyville stormed back from down seven points late in the game to win by two and stay in sole possession of first place in the Southern Illinois River-to-River conference, Mississippi division.

"For us, in that game, you look at what Jake Bathon and Shay Kellerman did, what Kyle Lamb did, and you can't minimize the minutes that Taylor Pyatt and Steve Brueggemann gave us, and Hunter Queen," Waggoner said, "the list goes on and on."

Kellerman scored 18 or more points for the third consecutive game, and appears to have become the on-the-court leader while the team's two top scorers are currently out of the lineup.

"All these different situations have basically led to Shay playing a different position," Waggoner said. "Shay's had to become a primary ball-handler, so that puts him more where he's facing the basket, which is more to his strengths, whereas in the past we've needed him to play more with his back to the basket and defend inside."

"So with him being a taller guard, bringing the ball up has caused mismatches with other teams," the coach continued. "They've had to decide whether they're going to guard him with a smaller player or put a bigger post player on him for when he goes back inside, and that's the advantage of running (a motion offense). Shay has really gotten his strength up, he's playing more confident now that his body has adjusted to the season, he's understanding his role a little bit more, and he's more comfortable facing the basket."

It wasn't Kellerman, but Bathon who led the Panthers in scoring Tuesday night, as he poured in a career-best 21 points in the harsh environment presented by the Sparta crowd.

"Jake has had more opportunities to score because he's needed to, and because he's looking more to score now rather than deferring to someone else," Waggoner said.

Lamb chipped in 13 points and also contributed defensively, keeping Sparta center Weslen Kiner out of the scoring column in the second half.

"The team has done a better job of getting the ball inside, and a big part of that is because (the younger players) aren't confident yet with their offensive roles so they're trying to have somebody else score," said Waggoner. "Kyle's got some more touches the past couple weeks."

But the unsung heroes of the past three games have been the sophomores and freshman - Queen, Hardin, Opp, Nippe and Bumann - called upon to fill in the holes vacated by the suspended (and now injured) players.

"I expected them to come in and play hard," Waggoner stated, adding that the results "are a little more gratifying."

"You go to practice every day hoping that kids put into this situation will be successful. The big thing we talked to them about doing is that the number one responsibility was to guard and defend, their second responsibility was to play hard, and the third responsibility was to rebound and not turn over the ball. Scoring is a little more difficult because the game is a little faster (at the varsity level), you don't get the open looks as quick, and you press if someone tells you that you have to score."

"What this has done has made our program a lot stronger," Waggoner said. "It's given us more bench play and it's made us better at every level with our depth."

The team's depth will no doubt face a test next week, as Pinckneyville begins play in the 2010 Benton Invitational Tournament on Monday. Help should be on the way, however, as some of the sitting players could see their suspensions come to an end before Saturday if things go according to plan.

At stake for the Panthers are not only five games in six days, but two rather impressive streaks in Rich Herrin Gymnasium. Pinckneyville has won the last five B.I.T.'s with a combined 25-0 record and has won 29 straight games at Benton overall since losing to an undefeated Cairo team there in 2004.

"The B.I.T. is a great tournament, we use it as a measuring stick, it's something that we want to win," Waggoner said. "It's five games and you're going to be tested with that, but, we don't hang up B.I.T. banners. The ultimate goal is to get yourself ready for the regional and the state tournament series."

Still of question is how the playing time will be divided as players return to action.

"I feel that our goal is to continue to improve," Waggoner said. "Well, now we have lots of room to improve because our guys have had some games taken away from them. So they're going to have to just come in there and adjust to the role that they're given on the team. I'm a firm believer that competition creates better teams, and there is going to be a lot of competition now that kids have been given a chance, and they've earned the right to stay in there.

"I would think as a player you would want that challenge of trying to get it back, and you'd want that challenge of being able to keep it," concluded Waggoner. "For a coach to just hand it over and you not have to fight for it kind of goes against competition and athletics, and I really think everything should be based on fair competition."

B.I.T. action beings Monday when the still short-handed Panthers, riding a four-game winning streak, take on Okawville at 6:00 p.m.