Turner Boys return with Plenty of Experience

The Turner boys’ basketball team is looking to continue the growth established a season ago. Their numbers are small, but they have plenty of experience returning at the top of the lineup and quality depth down the roster. Back for year two is Head Coach, Darci Ammen.

Turner returns a pair of seniors that are more than qualified to lead the team, “Ryan Doyle and Trent Billmayer are my two seniors. They both have quite a bit of varsity experience for four years and both have contributed valuable minutes since their eighth-grade year. Both Ryan and Trent have great leadership skills and are excellent at bringing the younger kids along. Ryan plays more of the point guard roll while Trent is a shooting guard, they are versatile and can shoot well from the perimeter as well as finishing at the rim with their ability to drive the lane and both are excellent passers,” stated Ammen.

The Tornado roster also includes a trio of juniors this season. “Caleb Zellmer, Carson Maloney and Tate Beck are my three juniors. Caleb actually has grown a lot as a player. He can shoot the ball well and can attack the defense from anywhere on the court. I’m looking forward to him being a good shot blocker and rebounder for us,” said Ammen. “Carson is 6’4” and can shoot and we will use him as our post player, but he can score from anywhere. Carson missed a lot of time during his sophomore year due to injury. I’m really excited for him to get a full year; he did all he could in the summer to improve his game. Tate is a point/shooting guard that played a full season last year and gained a lot of varsity experience, he is a great shooter and is a defensive asset to our team.”

There are no sophomores on the roster and two freshmen round out the lineup. “My freshman include Ty Beck and Brady Zellmer. They didn’t get a lot of varsity experience last year, but did play a full junior varsity season. They put a lot of time in this summer playing with the older kids and have really developed good chemistry with them. They will both be a real asset to our team, and it’s going to be fun watching them grow throughout the season and finding their rolls heading into tournaments.”

When the Tornadoes have the ball, Ammen plans to be entertaining, “Offensively, these boys like to push the ball and shoot from beyond the arc. This is going to be a fun team. We can go five out or play inside. These boys have played a lot together this off season and developed good chemistry. I feel that with the leadership of Ryan and Trent that they will be a disciplined team at both ends of the court.”

The Tornadoes plan to be aggressive on the other end of the court as well. “Defensively, we will mix it up a bit, we will play a lot of man-to-man defense and if we need to, we will adjust depending on the matchup with our opponent. I’d like to press this year, we had some success with it last year and I would like to do more this season. They are fundamentally sound on defense, so I think we should be able to be successful at it. I feel that it creates opportunities to score without setting up an offense,” said Ammen.

Ammen’s goal for the season is pretty straight forward, “I really want them to be great communicators on the floor. They came a long way a year ago, and I would like to see that growth continue this year, get better game to game and be ready for tournaments by playing our best ball.