By Brian Prato

Staff Writer

It’s that time of year again, basketball season. For WA, it’s looking to be a solid year.

The varsity basketball team has six returning players including Mark Cornelius and Matt Ellis, who are both returning DCL All Stars. Coach Ed Scollan expects them to be two of the team’s most valuable players and leading point scorers.

Ryan Imbriaco, Ryan Jann, Mike Bibinski, and Alex Preckol are the other returning players for WA, and their experience will hopefully pay off in the long run and help develop the younger players in this season’s DCL run.

There are only two sophomores playing on the team this year. Justin Mount, a shooting guard, and Troy Faretra, a guard/forward, are the youth of Scollan’s program and are expected to mesh well with the upperclassmen.

“We are very athletic, and I expect that to be one of our advantages,” Scollan explains.

The new players being introduced to the varsity level of competition, other than Mount and Faretra of course, are Mike Burgomaster, Riley Cox, Tim Orton, Raunak Mahesh, and Doug Searl. They are all juniors here at WA.

Coach Scollan is confident that the team will gel quickly and play the kind of game he is used to playing, in winning fashion.

“I am looking for constant improvement throughout the season, and we need to kind of ‘mix’ the returning players with a solid group of first year players.” The team, in his mind, has the potential to go pretty far this season.

Coach Scollan also explains his competition, and how he feels they can put up a fight, day in, day out with his new 2010-2011 squad.

“The DCL is always a very competitive league. AB had a solid year last season and returns mostly everyone; they will be very good along with LS and NS in the large school. CC should be solid in the small school division.”

The WA varsity basketball team begins their season with a big game on December 17th against Concord Carlisle, at home, at 7 p.m.