Q&A with Shawn Howe
By Erik Buchinger
The Clintonville High School boys’ basketball team finished 6-18 overall last season, including 4-14 in conference, but the Truckers return their best players from 2015-16.
Head coach Shawn Howe answered 10 questions about the upcoming season.
Year coaching the team: 7th.
Returning players (grade): Tyler Petermann (Sr.), Nate Krueger (Sr.), Jordan Koeppen (Sr.), Josh Schroeder (Sr.), Kyle Finger (Jr.), Sean Finger (So.), Samuel Wittman (So.).
Players to watch (grade): Nate Krueger (Sr.) and Tyler Petermann (Sr.) are our top two in basically every category, so they’re big returners for us. We return some other guys like Sam Wittman (So.), Sean Finger (So.) and Jordan Koeppen (Sr.), who are all guys who have some varsity experience, so we kind of hope they can make some progress from last year to this year. From what we’ve seen so far in practice, you can tell that they’ve grown.
Team goals/expectations: We always talk about competing. We always want to be competitive. Play hard and compete is all we can really ask, and if we play hard and compete, I think we have a chance to win some games.
Team’s strengths: We return some experience, including our top two scorers, top two rebounders and top two steal guys. We had two frosh and a sophomore on the team that got a lot of game experience and will provide more contributions.
Team’s weaknesses: We still will lack size at certain positions.
Teams to beat in conference: Lux-Casco, Little Chute, Freedom, Marinette, Denmark.
Biggest games on the schedule: In our conference, there seems to be a lot of big games. I think Luxemburg-Casco is probably going to be the favorite in the conference. Freedom is always good, Marinette is going to be good, Little Chute is always good. We treat every night as a big game. The teams that are supposed to be on the higher end, you’d like to steal a couple from those guys.
What you want players to get out of this season: I think teamwork is a big thing, I think if we can buy in to the idea of teamwork and team defense, I think that will be a good start for us.
Why fans should be excited for this team: We had a lot of good games last year. Unfortunately, we came up on the short end of the stick, but they were fun games to watch, and I think this team, considering what we’re returning and the progress that some of the guys made, I think it’s going to make us even more fun to watch, and instead of letting those close ones slip away, we can get the W.