There is a lot new about the Eagle River Wolves this season. First of all, a new coach. Former East Anchorage coach, and father of former ERHS player Dom Young, Fred Young has taken over the head coach position. Fred has brought in a fast paced offense, and swarming defense to the Wolves this season, and Friday night they showed they are going to be a force in the CIC.
The varsity boys have only 2 Varsity returners (three if you count Hunter Hill who spent most of last season with the JV team), in Kevin Waterman and Kelechi Madubuko. Senior transfer Chris Parker is one exciting addition to the team. A point guard standing at about 6’1″, Parker is a threat from the outside, hitting a couple big threes for Eagle River, and can quickly cut to the inside for easy layups. He is a great floor leader, and this kid can play. Unfortunately, during the South game, the Wolverines also learned how good Parker is and went at him hard. A couple fouls could have been called intentional, and in the fourth quarter, Parker took a foul to the head, getting hit in the eye, which took him out of the rest of the game.
In this next picture, I messed up. Shooting vertical for basketball is normal, but I should have shot horizontal. Chris leg that is out of the picture is being held by a South player….
Another addition to the team is Shaquan Rhoades. Shaquan is exciting to watch play. More explosive than Parker, but his game is not quite as refined as Parker’s. The combination of Rhoades and Parker is going to be fun to watch play this season.
Rhoades slashes through defenses with ease and will end up at the free throw line quite a bit this year. Both Parker and Rhoades, combined with Madubuko in the back court will be a force on both offense and defense, and they showed it against South.
Junior Hunter Hill and Senior Kevin Waterman down low will be rebound machines, and coming off the bench, Senior Patrick Prior can bring some instant offense with his outside range, and along with sophomore Thomas Jones will be essential to give Rhoades, Parker and Madubuko a rest.
The Wolves came in second in the Service tournament, and got beat up last week by Service at Service, but Friday night in the Wolves Den, the new look Wolves downed the South Wolverines 72-53 lead by Parker’s 16 points and Waterman’s 9 rebounds.
This is going to be an exciting season.
