New coaches Rodgers, Burkart building young Freeport teams
BUFFALO TWP — Despite being hired this fall, Gene Rodgers and Bill Burkart are the new coaches at Freeport.
Both coaches will try to make an imprint in their respective programs, but find they'll be starting almost from scratch.
Rodgers, the Yellowjackets' boys coach, who has led the Butler boys and Slippery Rock girls to their respective district championship games, has a monumental task at hand.
Last year's starting five — Nate Kotecki, Brady Sherrieb, Cory Massart, Brian Zimmerman and Chris Tagmyer — combined to score 88 percent of the team's points, averaging 58.7 points per game.
This year's roster has only two returning players that scored last year in juniors Sean Carnahan (eight points) and Harrison Wood (two).
"To be realistic, we don't have a lot of expectations," said Rodgers, who was hired less than one month ago. "We're getting started so late. We'll try and get them used to the pace of the game, but you really can't do that in practice.
"The situation we have is difficult, but we'll make the most of it,"Rodgers added.
On the girls' side, Stephanie Clowes (10.2 ppg, 35 3-pointers) and Cassie Smolic (8.1) have graduated, but the Yellowjackets do have senior forward Samantha Campbell (12.1) and senior guard Jordan Dunn (7.2 ppg, 16 3-pointers) coming back.
However, the team has just three seniors (Jessica Fair the other), two juniors, three sophomores and eight freshmen on the roster.
"It's difficult because we missed the whole summer," said Burkart, who was hired in the latter half of September. "The summer, with a girls team, makes all the difference."
With the Yellowjackets' boys team, Rodgers is still trying to get an idea what type of team this can be.
"The juniors are better scorers, the sophomores are better skilled players," said Rodgers. "We're trying to get them to practice hard and hopefully see what progresses."
In juniors Carnahan and Wood, Rodgers has two players who have some varsity experience while players such as Alex Isenberg, Tyler Collins and Darius Frantz bring their football experience to the court."It wasn't until (two weeks) ago I learned their names," said Rodgers. They seem to be good kids, hard-working kids. Hopefully that's a positive down the road."The advantage to having younger players is you can teach them what you want to do. From an experience standpoint, it's a disadvantage," Rodgers added.With teams such as Jeannette, Greensburg Central Catholic and Ford City in the section, things could be a little rough for the Yellowjackets — at least in the early going."That's why our expectations are little," said Rodgers. "These are 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds," said Rodgers. "I don't think any of them can drive a car. I don't see any of these kids backing down. If you don't back down, you always have a chance."Burkart, a social studies teacher in the Greensburg Central Catholic school district, had coached at Greensburg Central Catholic for 17 years, the latter 10 as a head coach, ending in 2004-05."There's definitely a void," said Burkart. "I've always been a gym rat."As for his expectations for his young squad, Burkart likes to keep it simple."They'll learn the game of basketball," said Burkart. "The W's will come if you believe. They've been on the wrong side of games lately. You have to instill confidence."Burkart will turn to Campbell and Dunn to help the team through the transition period."Samantha Campbell has been a mainstay the past couple of years and Jordan Dunn is another senior that will help our guards."While most of the freshmen will play a junior varsity schedule, "who knows by January? One or two may be in there."We're still trying to find our strengths. It's a learning experience, no doubt about it. We'll be aggressive and we'll compete. And we'll have fun. That's the key."We have 16 girls and my goal is to have 16 at the end of the season," he said.
