The Long Prairie-Grey Eagle Thunder boys’ basketball team and head coach Bruce Young have been known for their stellar defense for many years. Last season, that defense helped them find themselves in the state tournament.

The Thunder finished an outstanding 25-5 in a very tough West Central Conference. This was largely due to allowing just over 42 points per game with a matchup zone defense.

LPGE was able to dominate on defense because of a good amount of size across the board.

This year, it might be different for Young. The Thunder graduated their leading scorer and tallest player and will lack in size this season.

Young believes his overall team speed will be able to help his team’s lack of size.

“We have guys that can really run and get up and down the court,” Young said. “I think the key to a successful season will be whether or not we can stop teams with our size. It will be a learning process, but I am confident we will be able to do it.”

One of those quick players will be junior Cody Sprenger, who has been the starting point guard since eighth grade.

He will be making the shift over to shooting guard in an attempt to get some more scoring out him.

Austin Kaiser will be taking his place at point guard after playing the position in junior varsity last year. He was able to get some valuable varsity experience in the second half of the year last season as well.

Young will also bring back a top post in senior Duane Miller. “He was the second leading scorer on my team last year and was one of the better players in the conference last season,” Young said.

Miller is the Thunder tallest player at 6’ 4’’ and also has excellent ball handling skills.

Young says another key to this season will be Stanley Harvey. Harvey was the first post off the bench last season and is a strong 6’ 2’’ player.

Harvey is coming back after a sickness he came down with in the fall and is slowly gaining weight back and getting stronger.

“We’re hoping Sprenger and Harvey to give us double figures this season,” Young said.

The fifth starter has not been decided yet because of the Thunder’s depth. Young believes he will be able to go eight or nine players deep.

“I don’t think going much deeper than that is good for a team because it affects the unity of the team,” Young said.

The team’s strengths this year should be their ball handling, quickness, and shooting.

The team has some goals for the season. They want to average 60 points per game.

“Some people think we cant do that because we lost three big scorers from last year,” Young said. “These kids should be able to reach that goal, but we’ll just have to do it with a different style of play.”

The Thunder also want to be one of the top defensive teams in the league. This will require them to adjust from having good size last year to having excellent speed and quickness this year.

The third goal is to win the conference. This will be slightly different with the Thunder switching from the West Central to the Prairie Conference.

Although the schools in the Prairie are not as large as the schools in the West Central, Young thinks the conference will be all around competitive.

The team put in their time in the offseason. They practiced two hours a day, four days a week in the summer, and also played in the Perham League.

“I think if we keep getting better throughout the season and finish strong, we will have a good season,” Young said. “We’re all excited to start the season.”

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