WOODLAND LOSES ITS GUN, RETURNS BULLETS

The Woodland boys basketball team lost its leading scorer from last season, but that's about the extent of the bad things that graduation did to the Cardinals.

Taking that into account, Woodland coach Jennings Wilkinson expects the Cardinals to field a solid team, since five of the top seven players are back from last year's squad that compiled a 15-11 record."We lost David Massa, our leading scorer, and we'll miss him, but with the players we have coming back, I expect us to be competitive," said Wilkinson. "Last year we started out 8-0 and then had some key injuries. If we can stay healthy, then I look for us to be pretty solid."Wilkinson believes defense could hold the key to just how well the Cardinals fare this season."We're not real big, but we have quite a bit of experience coming back and we hope to utilize that to our advantage," he said. "We've got decent quickness and our work ethic is pretty good. Defense is a question mark. If it comes around, I think we'll be pretty good."Woodland's most experienced players back from last season are four seniors and one junior.

The seniors are 6-foot-2 C.W. Stacy, 6-1 Paul Long, 5-10 Jason Greer and 5-11 Matt Cutsinger while the junior is 5-10 Ryan Bandermann. Stacy, Long, Greer and Cutsinger all averaged around 10 points per game last season."All five of those guys were key players for us last year and we'll be expecting a lot out of them again," Wilkinson said.

Three other seniors also saw varsity action last year: 6-1 Joey Grippo, 6-1 Dale Jones and 5-10 Mark Tranum.

Juniors up from last year's JV who will be competing for playing time are 6-1 Jared Houtchins, 6-foot Todd Wesbecher, 5-11 Chris Masters, 5-11 Michael Ballard and 5-9 Kyle Booth.

Looking at what figures to be another highly competitive season of area basketball, Wilkinson said, "I think the usual teams who are generally strong should be good again, and I know some schools will be better than last year. There is always plenty of competition in our area."Woodland opens the season this week by hosting its annual tournament that is generally a good indicator of what teams figure to have strong seasons."It's always a good way to begin the season," said Wilkinson.