The Armstrong River Hawks boys varsity basketball team will look to improve from their debut season in 2015-16 - even though they lost a handful of seniors the team feels confident heading into the season.
by Jake DeLuca
The River Hawks are finishing up with Fall practices as they prepare to rebound from last years 2-20 record at their tip-off tournament on December 9 and 10 at Armstrong High School.
The River Hawks graduated a handful of seniors from last year, but Armstrong Head Coach Greg Hutcherson believes he has a lot of young talent ready to fill the void left by the graduates.
” Last year everything was new with the new school, new section , and new conference, and all new teams. This year the guys return and a lot of them have experience from last year so, they know what to expect this year. The whole (excuse) playing on a higher level of basketball, that’s out the door now,” Hutcherson said.
Even though this is the teams’ second year there will be one more change - moving up to the newly formed WPIAL 5A division, but Hutcherson believes this new division is where his team belongs.
” I think it’s where we should be. We are in there with Kiski Area, Gateway, Franklin Regional, Greensburg Salem, and Highlands. Last year it was a little tough, we were in the toughest section in 4A. That’s a huge jump for some of these kids to make in one year, but we got our feet under us and got that experience so we’re ready to go (this season).”
Before Armstrong was formed Greg was the head coach for Ford City’s varsity boys team. Traditionally Hutcherson says his coaching style is ‘grind it out’, but this year with a more athletic back-court they will look to control the tempo at all times.
“Last year we were a slow grind it out team, that’s just my (coaching) style. We are going to look to run more this year. Our main thing is to control the tempo. Every single we make sure we dictate how the temp goes. If we want to run we are going to make it up tempo. If we want to slow it down we want to be disciplined enough to be able to slow it down.”
The River Hawks athleticism may give the 5A division trouble, but Hutcherson says the real strength of his team is their basketball IQ.
“We have a very high basketball IQ team. These guys have all been playing since they were really young and it’s not something they just jumped into. They play a lot of basketball year round. Some of these kids have been around with me since I coached at Ford City and even the kids we inherited from Kittanning like Joe McCanna who is going to be a huge contributor for us have very high basketball IQ.”
With the success of Armstrong’s fall sports (football and volleyball made playoffs) Greg feels like winning is contagious and he looks forward to his team contributing to the River Hawks great sports start.
“Winning is contagious, that’s what I say. The football team won, the volleyball team won, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have a good year. It’s a little different in basketball with the style and the conference we’re in, but I see no reason why we shouldn’t have a good year. ”
“I have high expectations. I believe with the core guys we have this year they want (to win) as bad as I do and the community. They worked their tails off. They are very very hard working kids so we are looking to have a good year,” Hutcherson said.
The River Hawks will head to Dubois Saturday November 26 for their first scrimmage of the season. Tip-off is set for 11:00 AM.