Ask him how he thinks his third Waubonsie Valley outfit will be defined, Chaz Taft will be frank with you.
And he’s completely comfortable and understanding of the reasons why.
“Oh, it’s great,” Taft said of the football team’s success. “It’s awesome for our school. It’s awesome for our kids. Right now, we have five guys in football and they’re going to bring a lot of experience at winning, just breathe winning and stuff like that. So we’re happy with all the success they’re having and hopefully they can bring it over to the basketball court.”
Whenever the Warriors’ season on the gridiron ends, five players – Jack Connolly, Charles Robinson, Trevon Moore, Jonathan Cruz and Blake Blanzy – will be making the transition to the hardwood.
As with the case on the football field with Connolly leading the charges as the quarterback, he’ll be asked to perform a similar role for the basketball team that was pretty young last year.
Connolly is to the point when it gets to the benefit of what the last three-plus months on the football field will do for what the basketball team hopes to accomplish in its first year in the DuPage Valley Conference.
“It’s definitely going to carry over, this playoff run, and understanding the ups and downs of a long season in a tough conference,” Connolly said. “The biggest thing a lot of times is getting hot at the right time like we have. So the experience that of us five have gone through during football will really pay off in basketball, as well.”
After going 19-10 in his first year at Waubonsie Valley in 2013-14, youth was served for Taft’s charges during a 10-17 season last year.
The Warriors’ leading scorer, Chris Karkazis (12.9 points), and leading rebounder, Logan Yanisch (6.1 rebounds), from last season are both gone to graduation.
Karkazis and Yanisch both leave a big void on the court with their production, but Taft knows they’ll have a significant impact on this year’s group from afar.
“Those two guys – they came to practice every day and they worked hard and they were great role models for our kids and what it meant to work hard every day,” Taft said of Karkazis and Yanisch. “So they’ll be missed and everything, but I think they did a good job mentoring the kids who were sophomores last year and teaching the way of you got to stay with the process. It’s a long season and everything like that, so I was happy with kind of the way those two kids molded some of the guys on the team and everything with leadership.”
Karkazis was the only player to average in double figures for Waubonsie Valley, which returns three players – Mark Rullo, Connolly and Brian Phillips – who all averaged at least 5.9 points a game.
Phillips, Scott Wells and Luke Gregorio got extensive varsity experience a year ago as sophomores with the trio all seeing action in at least 19 games.
Taft believes the games of two of those sophomores from last year – Phillips and Wells – will take leaps this year.
“They’re both going to be juniors and they got some quality minutes last year on the varsity,” he said of Phillips and Wells. “I think they’ve really worked on their game and taken their game to the next level. I’m just very excited to watch them play this year.”
Connolly may not be sure of when he and his other four football teammates will be able to fully immerse themselves in basketball.
But he knows 2015-16 should bring better times than 2014-15 did and they’ll all be better for having gone through last year.
“We’ve got a lot of guys back and we’re also bringing up a few guys and have a few transfers that will bode well,” Connolly said. “This summer when we were all together out in camp and some tournaments, we played really well together. So it’s pretty promising for us this year.”
