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St. Clairsville must replace four starters

By SETH STASKEY

Times Leader Sports Editor

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Ryan Clifford enters his fifth season at the helm of St. Clairsville’s boys basketball program with a lot of reasons to be excited. However, he also has several reasons for concern.

That type of roller coaster of emotions happens when you lose four starters from 13-win team and return a roster that has just three players in the upper two grades.

“For the first time since I’ve been the head coach, we’ll be replacing basically everyone, but I couldn’t be more excited about this team because, maybe for the first time, we don’t have a target on our backs, so it’ll be kind of exciting to play in a different role.”

The Red Devils’ 2021-22 season ended roughly as they seemingly ran out of gas down the stretch after make-up games due to an extended football season and weather took their toll.

Still, however, St. C. played in both the OVAC and Buckeye 8 championship games and won a tournament game before bowing out. Actually, they lost in the league and conference title game as well as the sectional co-final to East Liverpool.

“We had a really good three months and one bad week,” Clifford pointed out. “We just ran out of gas and still really only one team kept us from having a really impressive season. If we could have gotten past East Liverpool, we would have had a lot of trophies.”

Now the Red Devils are forced to replace 1,000-point scorer Ryan McCort, who is now playing at Washington & Jefferson; Avery Henry, who scored 16 points and collected 12 rebounds a night and is now playing football at Ohio State; Colin Oberdick, who scored just under 10 points a night and Carson Woodford, who was a solid role player. Also gone are Saul Crist and Drew Sefsick, who missed the entire season due to a knee injury.

“While we’ll miss those guys, obviously, I think we’re going to be able to get back to playing the style we played my first couple of seasons,” Clifford admitted. “We’re going to get up and down. We’re long and athletic, so we’re going to use that to our advantage.”

Clifford believes he has a confident group despite its relative youthfulness, quite simply, because of the amount of time the players have invested in the sport.

“Our kids have put in an enormous amount of time,” Clifford said. “They’ve all gotten better from a year ago. Plus, it’s exciting to have new faces and kids who haven’t done it before. They’re all excited to get on the floor and there has been great energy at practice.”

Clifford has been around basketball and sports long enough, though, to realize that while that energy and excitement are nice, there are going to be growing pains along the way.

“We’re not naive to the fact that we’re going to make youthful mistakes,” Clifford said. “We obviously need to limit those, but we’re not going to shy away from the fact that we have some guys with talent. The biggest concern is who is going to lead us?”

The lone returning starter from a season ago is junior guard Cole Thoburn. An adept 3-point shooter, Thoburn scored 10.3 points a game last season and hit a team-high 58 bonus goals.

“Cole spent every minute of last season in the (varsity) fire last year,” Clifford said. “He probably didn’t sit out more than 20 minutes the entire season and had one of the best seasons in school history from behind the (3-point) line. But, he’s capable of doing other things and he will have more of a different role than just being a stand-still shooter.”

Senior Luke Porter returns after lettering a season ago off the bench. He missed a good chunk of action due to an injury. However, he’s healthy and Clifford thinks he could have a break-out season.

“Luke’s had a great summer and fall,” Clifford said. “He’s one of the few guys we have who didn’t play a fall sport, so he’s been working since Sept. 1. He can do a little bit of everything and we’re really excited about him.”

Senior Jacob Parsons is set to step up to a starting role for the first time. An athletic wing, Parsons is a player that Clifford believes will be one of the better defenders the Devils’ boast.

Sophomore Tyson Pastor, who earned a letter off the bench last season, will also take on an expanded role. He averaged 4.5 points a game last winter, but Clifford believes much more is on the horizon.

“I would be stunned if (Pastor) didn’t have a break-out year,” Clifford said. “He’s a hoops junkie who plays all year round. He was in a tough spot last year being a freshman on a senior-dominated team. He definitely has the ability to be a big-time player.”

Sophomore Brady Schafer will take over the point-guard duties for the Devils. Clifford is impressed with his ball handling and shooting ability.

Sophomores Gage Wolfe and Drew Gasber are expected to see significant minutes off the bench along with freshman Griffin Straub, who is 6-5.

Three other sophomores vying for minutes are Mickey Balgo, Kambel Sall and Carson Hendershot.

A solid freshman group that will see time on the jayvee and frosh levels consists of Derrick Panepucci, Kaden Shepherd, Ollie Muhly, Parker Galloway, Sam McLean, Niko Jacob, Tyler Harris and Kaden Clifford, who is Ryan’s oldest son.

“This group has come to practice each day ready to get better,” Clifford said. “We’ve had some of our better practices the last two or three years and we got them late because of football. I really think we have the potential to be pretty good, but potential means you’ve not done it yet.”

The Red Devils are slated to open the season Tuesday at Martins Ferry.

“I am sure there are going to be some wide eyes on opening night, but getting new kids and seeing what you can do with them is an exciting part of coaching high school sports,” Clifford pointed out.

Clifford’s coaching staff underwent a minor change. Brian Gay retired as the frosh coach after more than two decades on the bench. Ex-Red Devil standout Craig Bober, who just wrapped up his football career at West Liberty, will guide the frosh.

Kevin Sacco will once again be the varsity assistant, while Eric Gay will guide the jayvee unit. Jeremy Schafer and Jason Tuttle are the eighth and seventh grade coaches, respectively.

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