(Harlan) Harlan returns some very talented pieces from a state tournament team last year. The Cyclone boys will have two returning starters, a couple of others that saw significant minutes off the bench, and a batch of promising prospects.
Harlan coach Mitch Osborn is optimistic about what this group can achieve. “We’re very excited about it. We lost three terrific seniors from last year and Cody Christensen too off the bench, but Michael Heithoff, Johnny Monson, and Connor Bruck so that’s replacing a lot of firepower, but we do have a lot of guys that got to play quite a bit last year. We do have some experience. Obviously we are going to be behind. We started practice on the 24th so we are going to be about seven days behind everybody else, but that’s a great problem to have. Our guys, what a terrific run in the state football playoffs, finished as the state runner-up. We’ll hopefully carry that momentum over. We know we won’t be very good early in the season because we’ll be behind, but when you really have to amp it up is after Christmas.”
Coach Osborn says conditioning is the biggest challenge when getting a late start to practice. Fortunately they have some players that have proven they can get the job done. “Michael Erlmeier is a returning starter and he’ll be manning the point guard spot and Will McLaughlin back at the five spot for us and he’ll be a junior. Connor Frame also was a starter and played a lot. Then you have our sophomores that played as freshman Brad Curren and Aidan Hall.”
Joey Moser and Isaiah Ahrenholtz project to see a lot of playing time. Several others could be in the mix. Harlan starts the year on Thursday against Blair and is also scheduled to face Shenandoah on Friday.
