Blue Jays eye turnaround after last season

From today's Lancaster Intelligencer Journal:

Blue Jays eye turnaround after last season
Intelligencer Journal

Published: Nov 14, 2008
02:34 EST
Elizabethtown
By JASON FULGINITI, Sports Writer

Each one of them has likely been asked the question 100 times by this point.

What in the name of James Naismith happened?

As of Jan. 19, Elizabethtown College's men's basketball team was cruising along with a 13-1 overall record — a stretch that included wins over Millersville, an eventual NCAA Division II playoff team, and nationally-ranked DeSales. Results which helped put the Blue Jays in the NCAA Division III Top 25.

But then, the Commonwealth Conference season started. And the wheels came flying off.

Perhaps, literally.

By the time E-town dropped an 84-68 season-ending decision to Widener on Feb. 23, the Jays were a dismal 2-8 in 10 straight conference games, 15-9 overall, and missed the Commonwealth playoffs for the second straight year.

So what exactly did happen?

The answers vary depending on whom you ask, but there is one common theme.

Seems that E-town just got, well, tired.

"We had a good start and then we kind of wore down in the second semester," said coach Bob Schlosser, whose program made 11 straight appearances in the Commonwealth Conference playoffs prior to the 2006-07 season. "We were a little worn down, and not as deep as we normally are, and it hurt us.

"But it's not like the bottom fell out," he continued, having watched his guys lose seven of their last eight games by an average of 5.4 points, including two in overtime. "It's not like we were getting blown out. It's just that earlier in the year we won a lot of those close games."

One person who had a tough time watching the carnage unfold was Warwick graduate Chris Fairbanks, who was relegated to the role of fan while sitting out the season with a knee injury.

"It was awful," said Fairbanks, a 6-foot-3 junior swingman who will start this winter. "I wanted so bad to get out there and help them and be a part of it. From a fan's point of view it definitely seemed like the level of intensity and reliance on (last year's leading scorers) Chad (Piersol) and Mike (Schatzmann) was definitely evident.

"We play a pressing game," Fairbanks added, "and it was hard for Chad and Mike to have to do all the scoring and then play full-court defense. Definitely conditioning had something to do with it. And Coach has definitely taken care of that so far this year."

Mainly because when the Blue Jays open their season with a home game against Alvernia Saturday at 3 p.m., Schlosser — as usual — will expect baseline-to-baseline defense from his troops and high-tempo offense that likes to feed on the turnovers that defense so often creates.

Again, Schlosser is wondering just how deep his bench is at this point.

"We feel pretty confident with the first five or six guys we put out there," he said. "But for us, it's a matter of how deep we are. And for us, that's a concern because of the up-tempo way we play."

Another concern appears to be replacing the offensive punch provided by Schatzmann and Piersol. The reason, perhaps, why E-town was picked to finish sixth out of seven teams in a preseason Commonwealth Conference coaches poll.

Schatzmann, a Pequea Valley alum, averaged a team-best 20.2 points, including a team-high 55 3-pointers. Piersol averaged 17.3 points with 42 treys.

Still, Schlosser doesn't appear to be overly worried. He's confident starting junior center and Solanco grad Mike Church — who averaged 11.7 pts. and a team-high 5.9 rebounds per game last year, while leading the conference in blocked shots with 36 — along with Fairbanks and sophomore Keith Fogel (5.9 ppg, 14 3-pointers), who will start at No. 2 guard, will pick up that slack.

Factor in the return of starting point guard Phil Schaffer (4.5 ppg, conference-best 114 assists in 2007-08) — the only senior on the roster — and starting power forward Josh Houseal (5.1 ppg), a 6-foot-4 junior from Hempfield who played in all 24 of E-town's games last year, and Schlosser is hopeful the Jays can compete for one of the conference's four playoff spots come February.

The question again, though, is depth. And how quickly E-town develops it.

"Practices have been very competitive," Schaffer said, "and that's good because we've got a lot of guys competing for spots."

First off the bench, according to Schlosser, figures to be sophomore guard/forward Joe Flanagan, a Lancaster Mennonite product, and freshman guard Kyle McConnell (Cedar Crest). Bryan Harrity, a 6-foot-5 freshman center who transferred to E-town from Widener, is another potential weapon, Schlosser said.

Still, the biggest weapon of all could be the motivation stemming from a 2007-08 season that went from elation to devastation in a matter of three weeks.

"When we reached the Top 25 poll … going from there to not making the conference playoffs … " Houseal said. "It puts something in you, it's always in your mind that you don't want that to happen again."

"Getting ranked in the Top 25 doesn't do anything for you when it comes to March and trying to make the playoffs," Church said.

Lesson learned.

And with that, they start over.

E-mail: jfulginiti@lnpnews.com