The Columbus East freshman boys basketball team finished undefeated this season. Team members included, front row from left, Josiah Shelton, Connor Rodarte, Carson Gallion, Terran Degraffenreid, Cadyn Goodlow, Daelyn Diaz, Jacob Thomas, Kam Robertson, Layton Henry, Josiah Kiel, Will Baker, Keatin Roberts, Patrick Strickland, Jax Branaman; and back row, assistant coach Cooper Lewis and head coach Damon Hunter.
Submitted photo
The Columbus East freshman boys basketball team didn’t have any huge scorers this season, but they had a collective team effort that excelled defensively.
As a result, the Olympians ran the table on their 2024-25 schedule. They went 20-0, capped by a pair of 21-point wins in last week’s season-ending tournament at Seymour.
“They defend really hard,” coach Damon Hunter said. “We weren’t very big. We changed up a lot of defenses. They were just a very tenacious group. I’m a defensive minded coach, and we’re just do deep, we decided to press the whole game. We pressed the whole game until we pretty much thought it was over. ”
Hunter was in his first year as East freshman coach after running East’s youth feeder program the past couple years. He previously had coached in the Columbus North system and and has coached travel basketball teams.
The Olympians had to rally to win a couple of their games. They trailed Bloomington South by seven with three minutes remaining and came back to win by three. East trailed by as many as 12 at Bloomington North before winning by eight.
“We had several close games,” Hunter said. “The Bloomington North game, the JV and varsity had a lot of guys out, so we were missing two starters.”
The Olympians averaged 48.9 points a game and allowed only 26.9.
“The guys are a really aggressive group of young men,” Hunter said. “They’re really tough, they play really hard and they’re a really deep group. We played 10 to 13 guys in any given game.”
Two freshmen — Logan Neal and Carson Siegelin — played with the JV team the entire season and did not suit up for the freshmen. Three others — Josiah Kiel, Carson Gallion and Kameron Robertson — have moved up to the JV since the freshman season ended.
Kiel, Gallion and Robertson were joined in the freshman starting lineup by Keatin Roberts and Jacob Thomas. Daelyn Diaz also started some games.
East showed tremendous balance. The top five scorers averaged between 5.4 and 7.8 points a game. At least nine players scored in 12 of the 20 games.
“It was definitely a group effort,” Hunter said. “It was different guys every night. The top five scorers ran between six and eight points a game.”
Several of the players also were a part of the Olympians’ freshman football team that went 7-2 with losses only to Lawrence North and Cathedral.
“In a lot of sports, that class is a deep, athletic group,” Hunter said. “They’re a good group that will do a lot of winning over here.”
