Howells-Dodge boys basketball builds cohesion with young team

LEIGH — Howells-Dodge boys basketball continued its busy summer on June 19 at the Clarkson/Leigh team camp.

In their fourth varsity team camp of the summer, the Jaguars played three games against Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, Elkhorn Valley and Logan View/Scribner-Snyder.

“We’ve had our tests. We’ve gone to a couple camps of where we’ve played some pretty good teams,” Howells-Dodge head coach Kevin Janata said. “It’s just a good opportunity to kind of figure out what we need to work on. The guys seem to be jelling pretty well together, so I think we’re learning a lot and we’re getting better.”

Howells-Dodge embarks the summer with a young team following the graduation of five seniors, including four starters.

The Jaguars are looking to replace four of its top five scorers and their top four rebounders.

“We need to find out what roles guys are going to fit in. We lost a lot of seniors last year, so there’s a lot of playing time to be had,” Janata said. “Kind of just trying different defenses, different offenses and seeing basically who’s going to fit into what role. Couple guys are stepping up. It’s going to be exciting next year. I like what I’ve seen so far.”

Junior Nathan Tomcak is the lone returning starter for Howells-Dodge. Tomcak averaged 7.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game last season.

“Last season, I think I could have done better for sure. I didn’t shoot very well,” Tomcak said. “That’s kind of supposed to be my role on the team and I didn’t really hit shots. We’ve been in the gym. We’ve been shooting on the gun and it’s definitely showing this summer.”

Tomcak said he’s ready to step up as a leader and help bring the more inexperienced varsity players along this season.

“I trust all these guys. We’ve played for a long time. I know what they can do,” Tomcak said. “I know that on a lot of teams last year they would’ve played, so I know they can step up and fill their role. That’s just kind of helping them take in what role and helping to hone their skills.”

Among the young players looking to fill a bigger role is junior Dane Meyer. In 23 games, Meyer recorded 5.4 points per game last season.

“I feel like we started off slow. We didn’t have one of our better players in so we just kind of figured something out,” Meyer said. “We lost four seniors last year and we kind of battled injuries last year, so it was just tough coming back from that. I think we’re working together, playing together. Definitely shooting the ball better now and just winning games now.”

Despite coming off the bench, Meyer led the team with 3.7 assists per game. He’ll likely step in as the team’s starting point guard this season.

“Just getting in the gym. At the end of the year, we worked pretty hard even after basketball,” Meyer said. “We’re playing summer ball a lot even outside the school basketball, so it’s just playing a lot more ball.”

Howells-Dodge traveled to Centennial on Wednesday for a varsity and JV camp before competing in its final varsity camp on Friday at Lincoln Lutheran.

“This is about getting better,” Janata said. “Every experience, every game we play over the summer we got to get better at what we’re going to do and not worry about what the competition is going to do. We just need to improve as a team.”