DISTRICT CHAMP KELLY HIT HARD BY GRADUATION

The Kelly boys basketball team has had an impressive two-year run, capped by last season's 19-9 record that featured a Class 2A district championship.

This year, however, the Hawks face plenty of question marks as they will be without several of the standouts from the past two seasons, including Jim Hulshof and Jason Glastetter, who were two of the top players in Southeast Missouri."There's no doubt that some questions need to be answered. We don't know where certain things will come from, like scoring and rebounding," said Kelly coach Kent Mangels. "We graduated eight seniors and lost some really good players, but that happens."This group is working very hard. They've given me some of the best practices I've had as far as playing hard and getting after it."Added Mangels, "I've never been one to set real goals as far as wins and losses, other than to get better and improve every day. One thing is, we've had a lot of success the last two years (going 43-13) and hopefully this group can pick up where we left off. I look for a good season."While the Hawks graduated most of their offense from last season, they do return quite a bit of experience as five seniors all saw some starting time a year ago, several of them having to fill in early in the season when Kelly suffered through a rash of injuries."They all got valuable experience when we were going through all those injury problems early in the year," Mangels said. "I didn't think so at the time, but it (the injuries) might have been a blessing."The Hawks' most experienced player is 5-foot-9 senior point guard Jamie Essner, who ran Kelly's offense for most of the season last year."Jamie got in the lineup early because of all the injuries, then he did a good job and he stayed in the lineup," Mangels said. "He's really our only full-time returning starter."Brett Burger, a 5-9 junior, started some games when Hulshof was injured."He had some good games for us last year," said Mangels. "He can score and he worked hard in the offseason to become more of a complete player."Also starting some games last year were 6-1 senior Daniel Seyer and a pair of 5-9 seniors, Jeremy Skelton and Brandon Sander."We'll be looking for a lot of leadership from our seniors," said Mangels.

One other senior on the squad is 6-3 Quinton Schaefer, who didn't play last year but who Mangels expects to help out.

Mangels will also be looking for contributions from a pair of juniors with size, 6-5 Matt Seabaugh and 6-3 Josh Glastetter. Both were primarily JV players last season.

Looking at the rest of the area for this year, particularly among fellow Class 2A squads, Mangels believes Portageville, Scott City and Notre Dame will be among the teams to really watch out for."Portageville is just loaded, Scott City will be good again and Notre Dame should have a real strong team," he said. "Night in and night out, it's just a tough area around here. It's never easy."Kelly opens the season this week in the Oran Tournament.