Three senior starters come back for the Exeter boys’ basketball team

It was an average season for the Exeter High School boys’ basketball team in the 2011-12 season. They were 5-6 in the Berks League, beating the teams they should beat, and losing to the teams they were expected to lose to.

This year they having higher expectations. They have a lot back from last year and they will be a senior-oriented team. If the guys who are coming back come back much-improved, they could have a very good season.

“With three returning senior starters, I’m expecting a very competitive group that has good inside out presence,” said Exeter Head Coach Kevin Boettlin. “We have good senior leadership and a good underclassmen group that gives us nice depth on the bench.”

The biggest change the Eagles will have to deal with is the new Berks League set-up. Instead of four division, the league has gone down to three divisions, with the top two teams in each division making the playoffs and two wild card teams filling out the playoff card.

Exeter will once again be in Division 1 with Reading, Wilson and Governor Mifflin. But they will also have Daniel Boone amd Muhlenberg in the same division this year. Both Daniel Boone and Muhlenberg were involved in a three-way tie for first place last year in Division 2 with modest records of 7-5. The road will be tougher for them in a division with the big schools.

The bad news for Exeter is that they will lose their leading scorer from last year, Konlan Krick, to graduation. He averaged 13.7 points a game which will be hard to replace.

The good news is that they will return the next three highest scorers on last year’s team in Justin Trojanowski, Joe Beddall and Bryan Stinson.

“Trojanowski can play any position on the floor and is a good floor leader,” said Coach Boettlin. “He should be one of the top scorers in the county.”

Last year Trojanowski was third on the team in scoring with 150 points (6.8 per game). He led the team in free throw percentage at 72%.

“Beddall is a very good defender and has a nice outside shot,” said Boettlin. He scored 16 points last year (5.3 per game) and had 14 three-point shots.

Stinson is a tough inside players with a nice mid-range shot. He was second on the team last year in scoring with 246 points (11.2 per game).

One thing this team is missing is a good three-point shooter. Last year the team had a total of 56 three-point buckets. Krick accounted for 30 of them. They will need to find some players to make those three-pointers. They can make a big difference in a close game.

The boys’ will begin the season by hosting the Exeter Tip-Off Tournament on Friday and Saturday, December 7 and 8. The Eagles will be joined by Muhlenberg, Pottsgrove and Upper Merion with action getting underway with two first round games at 6 p.m. on Friday.

They open the Berks League season with a game at Governor Mifflin on Tuesday, Dec. 16. By then, we may have a better idea of what this team could do this year. They have the talent to make the playoffs, now they’ve just got to go out there and do it.