2002-03 SCHEDULE

Nov. 29 -- at Linesville Nov. 30 -- Cochranton Dec. 2 -- at Jamestown Dec. 3 -- at Conneaut Lake Dec. 5 -- at Clarion Dec. 13 -- at Greenville Dec. 16 -- at Reynolds Dec. 17 -- Mercer Dec. 20 -- Sharpsville Dec. 28 -- Jamestown Jan. 4 -- at Sharpsville Jan. 8 -- at West Forest Jan. 10 -- at Kennedy Catholic* Jan. 17 -- West Middlesex* Jan. 21 -- at Mercer Jan. 24 -- at Wilmington Jan. 28 -- Greenville Jan. 31 -- Kennedy Catholic* Feb. 1 -- at Venango Catholic Feb. 5 -- West Forest Feb. 7 -- at West Middlesex* Feb. 11 -- at Villa Maria Feb. 14 -- Wilmington [* = MCAC-A contest]

By The Herald Sports Staff

Last year, Commodore Perry boys' basketball Panthers pounced on some unsuspecting opponents, and the result was a school single-season record 17 wins and a District 10 Class A at-large playoff berth.

But after back-to-back 14- and 17-win seasons CP no longer will sneak up on foes, which is a double-edged sword for the program and ninth-year head coach Jay Carlson. Now that Carlson & Co. have gained opponents' respect, it will make each outing that much more competitive and challenging.

"Teams aren't looking at us as an automatic win, so it's certainly going to be challenge," Carlson acknowledged. "The last couple years we sneaked up on teams who weren't expecting much from Commodore Perry."

Carlson said his players, through an evolutionary process, gradually learned how to win.

"There for a while we just couldn't get over the hump," Carlson recalled, "but then we won some games and now our kids know how to win, rather than throwing away games in the last couple minutes. We're better at finishing games."

Lack of experience perhaps cost the Panther in last season's District 10 opening-round setback to Sheffield, and now Carlson is faced with the prospect of building around a lone returning letterman in 6-foot-1 senior 2-guard Zack Moinet.

"He led our team in assists last year, but now we're looking for him to score this year," Carlson said.

Moinet will be bolstered by a backcourt corps of newcomers, including 6-0 senior point guard Matt Nagel, 5-11 off-guard Matt DeFrances, 6-1 junior guard Chris Clark, and 6-0 senior 3-guard Andy Linn.

"I think last year our only real outside threat was (Eric) McCullough," Carlson recalled. "But this year we have more talented shooters from the outside, but we need that to come together. Clark, DeFrances, Nagel, Moinet, they're all good shooters, but we need at least some of them to be clicking every night. One advantage we have over last year's team is we are better outside shooters. We've gone from being a strong forward(-oriented) team to a better outside team. But we've worked on that."

Josh Sindlinger graduated and now is playing at Penn State-Behrend and Jason Ramp matriculated at Thiel, leaving 6-4, 200-pound junior Jason Leffler in the post. Junior Josh Nevin, who has grown from a guard to a 6-3 forward, will join Leffler and 5-11 senior Luke Wilson and 6-1 junior Russ Prada on the front line.

Carlson emphasized that, due to this season's relative lack of size, it will be vital for his backcourt to produce some offense, but much of that will need to be generated by newcomers.

"If we handle the transition from JV to varsity, I think we'll be all right," Carlson commented. "We did lose a lot of senior talent from last year, our leading scorer (McCullough) and Josh Sindlinger, a kid who gave us a double-double (points, rebounds) every night, plus about five blocks, but I think this is a good team. This year it's not going to take just five, but seven or eight kids playing well. And they play well together as a team -- they look for each other -- so we're going to try to get more baskets in transition this year instead of setting up the offense like last year. We lack for height now, but we'll try to make up for that with quickness. We have some quick guards who can get up and down the floor and they keep their heads up and are in position to shoot.

"As far as our team is concerned, I like the way these kids work. They never quit. They hustle from the beginning to the very end," praised Carlson, a former Lakeview High standout who earned a degree from Edinboro University and is in his 14th year as a teacher in Commodore Perry School District.

Last season, CP complemented perennial powers Kennedy Catholic and West Middlesex by representing the Mercer County Athletic Conference in the D-10 playoffs.

"West Middlesex and Kennedy, their records speak for itself," Carlson said. "But we would like to be competitive like we were last year. Even though it boils down to four (MCAC-A) games, we've got to try to win every game and, maybe, something can happen. We didn't like to go in the backdoor last year (as an at-large selection), but ... we'll take it any way we can."

As the Panthers' program discovered last season, it's far better to be one of the haves, rather than one of the have-nots, and qualifying for the playoffs, under any circumstance, always is preferred. -- By Ed Farrell, assistant sports editor.