BY BRIAN FEESSouthern Tier Sports Report
CORNING — The Corning Hawks boys’ basketball team has a strong group of returning players as they hit the court to start practicing for the upcoming season.
“We have a nice group of kids coming back,” Corning coach Mike Johnston Jr. said. “We return 10 kids who were on the roster a year ago and four starters. We know we lost some pretty good kids as well to graduation, but the kids have put in a lot of hard work in the offseason.
“Kyler (Stephenson) and Nolyn (Proudfoot) paced us in the scoring department. Teigen (Gill) is a guy that does everything. Plays great defense. Plays the best defensive player on the other team. Kohl (Hogue) is as quick as any point guard around. He just committed to St. Joe’s, Division I lacrosse, and then Carter (Proudfoot), last year he had some really big moments for us, especially in the STAC semifinal game. He had 17 points in the third quarter when Nolyn got into foul trouble and had to sit the whole quarter. We have a great group of kids who saw a lot of playing time last year and we have some other kids who worked really hard in the offseason and had great summers.”
Proudfoot is coming off a huge summer, including earning his first Division I offer.
“He’s earned everything he’s got,” Johnston Jr. said. “He’s already got an offer to the University of San Diego where Steve Lavin coaches. He’s been to St. John’s as the head coach and UCLA as the head coach. This early in his career, being a sophomore, and being a 1,000-point scorer already, but he’d be the first to tell you that he has great players around him.”
The Hawks are not the biggest team around, but they will be a matchup problem for other teams with the way they play.
“You get what you emphasize,” Johnston Jr. said. “We know we can shoot it and people are going to have to play us differently, because we have five guards who could potentially start for us and can take the three and can ake the three from deep. We play a different tempo than other people. The thing defensively is we put a lot of pressure on the ball and we have some different coverage as far as the way we defend people. We don’t have the size comparison with maybe our opponents.”
The Hawks also have a lot of players who put a ton of work in.
We have some pretty good athletes, but it doesn’t happen just because,” Johnston Jr. said. “It happens because of all the work. This group has put in as much time basketball wise in the offseason as any group I’ve ever been around. They go out, they don’t need somebody to have an open gym. They spent the summer, we played in the Waverly summer league, kids played in a Northeast, Pennsylvania league on Sunday’s, a majority of the played AAU. A majority of them were up playing in the GIAC league in Ithaca. They just have such a passion for basketball and they got into the weight room this year so now we can guard people who ay be a little bit bigger than us. The strength I think is the one area, not onlty he tie spent working on basketball skills, but the strength piece has been huge for our kids.”
————
PHOTOS BY BRIAN FEES
PHOTO GALLERY FROM PRACTICE:
