Light helps Jays see better days

To get a quick insight into the history of the sports programs at Oak Ridge High School, one only has to ask Blue Jays senior Garret Light about a past player from his community that might have inspired his current course.

So was there an Oak Ridge athlete in his younger days who blazed a trail that might have inspired him to become a two-time all-state cross country runner or an all-district player in basketball and baseball?

"Not really," Light said with a somewhat embarrassed laugh. "But I hope to set an example for some kids that are coming up now. So it shows them that they can win whenever they're older, too. They don't have to return back to the tradition that Oak Ridge has had not to win."

Yes, the Oak Ridge gymnasium is not exactly wallpapered with championship banners.

The Blue Jays baseball team reached the first state quarterfinal game in any sport in school history last year, and the boys cross country team claimed second place at the Class 1 meet in November. Basketball season has not seen a dip in the run of excellence. The Blue Jays won their first Woodland Tournament title in the 40-year history of the tournament last month, and entered the 16-team Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament as the only unbeaten team in the field.

Oak Ridge's Garret Light averages 16.5 points, 10 rebounds and four assists per game. (LAURA SIMON)

Oak Ridge, a Class 2 school for basketball, went 1-2 in the tournament, succumbing to No. 2 seed Notre Dame in the quarterfinals before falling one quarter short of upending Class 5 Jackson in consolation play.

Light, who averages 16.5 points, 10 rebounds and a team-high four assists, has been in the thick of the Oak Ridge sports renaissance.

In addition to running cross country all four years, his other sports titles at Oak Ridge include leadoff batter, shortstop, pitcher, catcher, point guard, off guard, forward and post player.

His 6-foot-1 frame is versatile and athletic. He possesses quickness, agility and endurance.

In one baseball game as a sophomore, he struck out 12 batters and hit a home run. As a junior, he primarily played shortstop, which is his favorite position, and played the role of leadoff batter and base thief.

Oak Ridge Blue Jay Garret Light takes a shot during Friday night's game against Meadow Heights. (LAURA SIMON)

"I play pretty much wherever they need me," Light said.

Light said he is not a big fan of cross country, but only started in it to prepare for basketball, his favorite sport.

He hopes to play a sport in college next year. As a testament to his versatility, he only offers, "I want to play something somewhere."

Adam Stoneking, who is in his second season as basketball coach at Oak Ridge, has found Light coachable, upbeat with teammates and a relentless worker.

"I'm sure you could put him on a high school football team right now, and he's never played before, and I can guarantee by the end of the season he's starting -- offense and defense," Stoneking said. "The coach is going to find a way to get him on the field. You can play him in any sport, and by the time he's finished, he's going to be good at it. He has that killer instinct. He hates to lose."

That's the person Stoneking finds on the basketball court. He calls him a guard, but with reluctance.

"I can't stand to take him off the floor," Stoneking said. "You want to give him a rest, but you can't not have him in the game. There's a lot of times I can't afford to take him out of the game, because if I do, then we lose our ballhandler, our best offensive rebounder, one of our best passers."

But the Blue Jays are far from a one-man show.

Junior center Brett Thomas leads the team in scoring and rebounding, and senior Logan Mangels and junior Caleb Elam also average more than 10 points a game. All four have hit for 20 points in a game this season. Thomas also played a big role in baseball last spring, while Elam was an all-state runner this year in cross country.

'Gets everybody going'

Light "has been the leader probably since his sophomore year," Elam said. "He's been really aggressive in every sport. He encourages us off and on the court. He doesn't fool around at all. In cross country, he pushes us in practice and sometimes leads the pack. He helps us push ourselves."

"He's the one that really gets everybody going," Stoneking said of Light. "He just goes as hard as he can go all the time. He never takes a play off."

Part of his intensity may have come from the hunger built during the lean times. As a four-year starter, he's seen the bottom of the valley that Oak Ridge resided in for years. Oak Ridge had one of its typical seasons his freshman year, winning three games in basketball.

Stoneking was an assistant with Notre Dame three years ago and remembers seeing Light in the Woodland Tournament.

"You could tell he was going to be good, but he was all they had when he was a freshman," Stoneking said. "I'm sure it's rewarding for him, but he's worked his butt off."

Light is enjoying the turnaround, especially since he gets to share it with classmates he's grown up with.

"I knew ever since I was younger, everybody told me that my class and the classes below me would be the time whenever we turned the program around," Light said. "And now that it's actually happening with my class, it's pretty nice."

The gym in Oak Ridge is a more crowded and exciting place these days.

"We have a lot more kids coming to our games now, especially basketball games," Light said. "Because they like to come out and cheer us on whenever we're winning, which I guess it's funner to cheer on a winning team than a losing team.

"I never thought we'd accomplish these things. Nobody thought we'd accomplish all these things. It's kind of good to show everybody that even though we haven't had the strongest programs in the past, there's still hope in the future."

And he's hoping that high times reach record levels before the season is over.

"I would really like to win 20 games because no team in Oak Ridge history has ever won 20 games, from what people are telling me," Light said. "The most is 19, and that's been back in the '70s, or '60s even. It would be nice to just beat that.

"And I would love to win a district title. That's something we shoot for in basketball every year. We've won cross country districts, we've won the baseball district while I've been in high school, now hopefully we can pull it off in basketball."

Light is hoping Oak Ridge will continue to flourish after his playing days are over. He keeps track of the younger players, and cited the school's eighth-grade team that has lost just one game this year -- a close one in the season-opener, he notes -- and that went undefeated as seventh-graders.

"They'll be a pretty tough team when they get to be juniors and seniors," Light said.

And they may be saying that they've seen the "Light," as well as Thomas, Mangels, Elam & Co, using them both as models and inspiration.

"These kids are creating that reference point for everybody else to see what it takes," Stoneking said. "And you can already see it with the seventh- and eighth-graders. You see them talking about these guys."