St. Anthony’s Boys Varsity Basketball is coming off a great season where they defeated rival Chaminade in the CHSAA championship 63-60. The Friars will look to repeat this year, but it won’t be easy.
Coach Sal Lagano’s starting lineup last year was led by 5 seniors; Jon Harewood, Corey Bernard, Mike Regan, Antonio Lopez, and Tyrone Lyons. Coach Lagano had this to say about guys filling the shoes of all those seniors who are now gone; “We have to hope that guys can mature quickly. Nothing teaches like playing time. Guys will get great opportunities. They will come in, get better, get repetition, and get more minutes. It’s the maturation process of high school basketball. One guy leaves who had a great career and the next guy steps up. We’re looking for the guys to be really team oriented and get better together.”
Certain players will have to step up this year with all the seniors leaving. Coach mentioned a few players in particular, “I think guys who got some playing time last year like Andre Snoody, Louis Stallone, Makhai Murphy, Jevon Burke. These guys are guys who are coming back and hopefully they can lead these young players. This is a young talented group. We scheduled them in a way that’s going to be very difficult. We think that will help the maturation process and their expectations of each other to play a very good schedule every night.”
Coach Lagano is really emphasizing progress this year. Coach was asked about his general expectations for the season, “I would like to see them get better as the season goes on. The best teams are hard to play and hard to beat. We’re not both yet, so hopefully we can get to that by doing the little things like free throws, playing together, and getting experience. Our expectations are to be a real hard to play, hard to beat team in January and February as they go through this schedule to try to help them get better.”
The Friars are 8-5 overall and 2-2 in league play.
Watch Live Stream vs. St. John’s the Baptist on Jan 18 at 7:30pm on Friar News https://www.friarnews.com/ with Friar Scoreboard commentators Gabe Angerie and Jarred Valluzi.
Come out and support your Friars as they look to repeat as CHSAA League Champions this year!
Gabe Angieri is a senior writing at St. Anthony’s High School, writing for his fourth year with Friar Scoreboard. He hopes to continue his sporting writing career in college and become a profession sports journalists. He is also a member of NHS, SALT, and Friar Faithful.
