Hauser’s Stryker Gill drives against North Decatur’s Lance Nobbe Jan. 6 at Hauser High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
HOPE — Hauser has put itself in position to have success down the road.
With the influx of talent in the the past two freshmen classes, the future is looking bright for the Jets. The freshmen this year have split time between JV and varsity, but as the season progressed, they’ve become more a part of the varsity rotation.
Hauser isn’t looking that far down the road, yet. They want to find out what happens now. The Jets ended the regular season 11-12. They drew a bye in the South Ripley Sectional will play the winner between Milan and Switzerland County in the semifinals on Friday.
Jake Barriger and Stryker Gill are two freshman that began the season in the starting lineup for Hauser. Gavin Keller and Kameron Blair also get quality minutes off the bench. However, Blair has recently started the past few games for the Jets.
It’s not uncommon for high school basketball teams to start one freshman, but it’s even more rare to have two freshmen in the starting lineup.
“Especially for me, I play a lot bigger guys this year, guys that are 18-year-old men,” Barriger said. “At first, it was a little bit nervous, but now that we’ve settled in, we’re in the groove of the game, it not nerve-wracking anymore.”
Playing against upperclassmen will only help the Jets more forward.
“The nerves that we have right now and the learning opportunities playing against really good teams will put us in position when we’re seniors and juniors that it’ll be like, ‘We’ve seen this before,’” Gill said. “We’ll already know what to do, and we’ll be ahead of people that will now be getting on varsity as juniors and seniors.”
At the beginning of the season, Barriger and Gill played one quarter of JV to mix with the four quarters of varsity, and Blair and Keller played at least two quarters of JV and as much as three quarters of varsity.
Now, Gill and Barriger are full-time varsity. Keller and Blair eased into only one quarter of JV and four quarters of varsity during the season until recently becoming full-time varsity, with Blair now starting.
“I worked really hard, and I never stopped working hard,” Blair said. “It’s really good when we’re playing together because we know basically what each other is going to do. We have the same mindset in everything.”
Per IHSAA rules, a player has a maximum of five quarters between JV and varsity on a given night.
“It’s a perfect rule for freshmen in their position. In my mind, why not use all five of those and get them able to see what game night is like for a high school game night on Friday and Saturday nights,” Hauser coach Trent Moorhead said. “It also gets them on the court and be able to calm some nerves down for a quarter of the JV game. Once they hit the varsity court, they’ve been out here before. I think that rule really benefits freshmen who can play some varsity.”
Most of the freshmen have been playing together on a travel team since early in elementary school before heading into fifth grade basketball. As eighth-graders, they went 17-3, and they totaled a 55-9 cumulative record from their fifth-through-eighth-grade years.
“A lot of the competition wasn’t starting at a young age,” Gill said. “When we were starting, we were already great friends and went to school every day together. Most travel teams aren’t a school team, so that built our chemistry up more than it already was. That brought us together on and off the court.”
This year’s freshman class is reminiscent to last year’s class, which had Alex Cord and Taeshaun Tungate starting and Ledger Gelfius and Collin Buck also being a part of the varisty rotation. Buck is out for season, however, due to an injury.
“It’s such a good group of guys top to bottom. There’s been a lot of freshmen in that class who have contributed on our C-Team and our JV team, as well. I’m really proud of the growth we had,” Moorhead said. “For that whole group, they’re coachable and really good kids. We’re fortunate to have a group of young boys that want to learn and want to get better. It’s helped with our culture building and what they’ve brought to the table. Our upperclassmen, as well, have been welcoming and brought in that group. It’s been really good from top to bottom.”
The future may be bright for the Jets, but they want to win now, as well. The postseason journey begins on Friday.
“We’re certainly excited about the future. We always keep the main thing the main thing, so our focus is the next game,” Moorhead said. “I’ve stressed that to our guys. We’re focused on this season right now. At this particular time, we’re focused on who’s next on our schedule. We’ve been big on that. I think that helps keep it in perspective. We know the bright future that lies ahead, but we’re so locked in on right now and what can we do to get better for Friday night. I think that’s been why we’ve had some success this year because we’ve been focusing on what we can do to get better right now, today. But at the same time, we’re excited about what lies ahead, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get there.”
