TRAPPER MEN'S BASKETBALL OPENS SEASON AT HOME

BY SETH ROMSA TRIBUNE SPORTS WRITER
Courtesy of the Powell Tribune

Following a long preseason the Northwest College men's basketball team is set to open the regular season this weekend at home, taking on an alumni team to jumpstart the season.
Throughout the month of October the Trappers have been practicing and played on the road for a number of scrimmages, learning more week by week. The men return only five players who received playing time last season, four of those featuring in more than 50% of games.
"Like most years we've had some good practices and we've had some bad ones," coach Andy Ward said.
The Trappers have been on several trips to Montana as well as one to Salt Lake City to take on a couple of top teams from that area, and Ward said he saw different improvements each time the team got out on the court.
Leading the way in returners for the Trappers include Trey Rinn, who started for a majority of Region IX games a season ago, along with Tate Monroe, Eli Patterson and Ants-Kristjan Kalmus who all featured off the bench.
Redshirt returners include R'Zha Zha'Quire Whittle, who played in eight games before receiving a medical redshirt, and Gunnar Erickson, Richy Rodriguez and Travis Theran Archibald, who all redshirted the entirety of last season.
"We've got a lot of new guys. We don't have a lot of returners in the sense of game experience. We have a lot of guys that redshirted and then a few guys that played. But I like our pieces, we still have a long way to go," Ward said.
In addition to those returners, the Trappers welcome in eight freshmen to the team.
Those are Mateo Trujillo, Monybuony Kor, Nayel Girard, Isaac Wolfe, Logan Woolstenhulme, John Hendricks, Alex Jordan and Braydon Bradshaw.
To this point in the season Ward likes the team's effort, feeling they will be successful in one of the most important areas of the game.
"I think we'll rebound the ball pretty well. We haven't been really good this week in defensive rebounding, but I'm hoping that is a sign of us being good offensive rebounders," Ward said. "I think that could be a strength for us, I think we'll shoot the ball pretty well. Defensively, we're still trying to find ourselves a little bit. One of the areas that we weren't very good at after the Salt Lake scrimmages was our defensive transition. So we've worked really hard on that."
Ward added again that he does like the chemistry of the group, as they understand each other's strengths pretty well to this point, adding they are "coachable guys."
Northwest starts the season this weekend at home with a matchup against an alumni team featuring former college players including some local athletes.
That game will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday in Cabre Gym.
Following that game the Trappers head on the road for a couple of weeks, heading through Montana for three games then a trip to Idaho, before returning home for the Coach Collins Heart of a Champion Classic on Nov. 21-22.
Throughout the nonconference season the Trappers will take on a number of difficult opponents, with Ward hopeful the team continues to improve before Region IX action rolls around in January.
"We've got a tough schedule. My hope is that we can go out and take care of business right away, but if we don't do that, we're just continuing to get better each day," Ward said.