Cardinals' lineup features nice mix

Josh Eftink has taken over the position of basketball coach at Woodland -- a team with a nice blend of experienced seniors and a potentially promising group of newcomers.

Eftink, an assistant coach at Holden High School last year while attending the University of Central Missouri and a former guard at Notre Dame High School, inherits a team with three returning starters from an eight-win 2006-07 squad.

Two of those players are seniors Timmy Abner and Caleb Lee, who will share the duties of point guard and shooting guard.

Lee shoots well from the outside and is improving his ability to penetrate in the middle and create some offense, Eftink said. Abner shoots well from 3-point range and can also pass well. Eftink expects a number of assists from him.

The other returning starter is 6-foot center Jordan King, who is listed 2 inches taller than last year.

"He's going to bring inside presence," Eftink said. "He's a strong kid. He's going to be more of an offensive threat, hopefully, for us this year. He's going to have to be for us to be successful on the inside. We except a lot of rebounds from him and being physical we expect him to do a lot of the little things for us to help us win."

One of the two starting forward positions that opened due to graduation will be filled by 6-0 junior Kyle Reynolds. The other was still up in the air and could be filled by senior Joe Layton, who was not on the team last year.

"I expect a lot of good things out of Kyle Reynolds," Eftink said. "He's a guy that's going to have to go inside for us and outside for us. So he's a guy on the team who can do pretty much anything.

"Six foot 1 is about as big as we get. So we got to do a lot of things fundamentally right to succeed because we don't have a lot of height. We have some strong kids, so that can help make up for a lack of size. We have some real fast kids too, so we're going to have to rely on our strength and our speed. We have to rely on our speed to get us some easy shots."

The team will use some of that quickness on defense, too.

Eftink has gone to a man-to-man defense instead of the zone that the Cardinals used under former coach David Mirly.

"From the effort that they've been giving me, I've been really happy with how they've been adjusting," Eftink said. "I've had great effort from all of them and they seem excited about this style of play."

Eftink said he has not set a goal to win a certain number of games so far because he has not seen the other teams and he has nothing to compare his squad to yet. He also added that his starting lineup is not yet set in stone.

He also likes junior Devon James, a quick post player, and junior Josh Hahn.

"My goal is for them to play their best," he said.