La Salle looking for continued success
TROY, N.Y. » The La Salle boys basketball team finished as one of the top teams in Section II Class AA last season, beating Shenendehowa to advance to the finals, where they fell to Bethlehem.
With the way the last season ended, coach Steve Sgambelluri said it makes his team see where they can be and makes them, hopefully, want to get back there.
“You always remember your last game of the year, as a coach, as a player and we had a tough loss a year ago at the Civic Center in Glens Falls and I remember it like it was yesterday and I think most of our guys remember it like it was yesterday,” Sgambelluri said. “I think that is going to fuel them and help them grow a bit, which is what you want, especially if you have to lose a game, you want to be a game you can learn and grow from. They got a little taste of being close, but hopefully that is a positive thing
for us and it fuels more hunger, but that remains to be seen. Last year is over, just because we were good last year, doesn’t mean we are going to be good this year. We have a lot of work to do.”
With the season starting soon, La Salle is still trying to figure out their identity. They lost to important players in Tim Carroll and Kyle Borey to college and are trying to work to be a better team and reach where they ended last season and beyond.
Sgambelluri said his team is going to have to make up for the losses of Carrol and Borey with some guys stepping up and others continuing to get better.
“We have three guys in particular, Joe DeLollo, Ray Evans and Ian Duncan, who will be three year varsity starters and are seniors now,” Sgambelluri said. “Those three guys have been successful at every level they have played here at La Salle and their maturity and attention to detail and the way they handle themselves day in and day out, in the classroom and on the basketball court, and that really translates a lot to being successful. Those three guys really lead the charge for us. They are a veteran trio who all the ability, and are currently getting recruited, to play in college. The other two guys, Seth LaForest and Jelani Wiggins, played a ton of minutes last year and they will be called upon to do a bit more for us this year. Then we have some youth, energy and skill and talent from some younger guys on our bench, but I would say look no further than Joe, Ray and Ian, they have provided great leadership for us the last three years, even as sophomores they were great leaders, which doesn’t happen a lot.”
The Cadets are still working to get better every day and working toward a strong start to their season against Shaker on November 18.
Sgambelluri said his team is just working to get better every day and trying not to get too far ahead of themselves.
“We still are very early and, like we always do, we are taking it a day at a time,” Sgambelluri said. “We are trying to figure out what we are good at and what we are not good at and we got to try to continue to make ourselves better, I think that is really important. The good teams never really care about scores, they don’t even care who plays, they care about winning and this group has embraced that so far, but we are a work in progress, we have a long long way to go. We will have to see what happens. Right now, we are trying to take it a day at a time, throw a lot of things at the wall and see what sticks.”