The Eureka Springs Highlanders will have a mostly new roster and an almost entirely new style of play when basketball season tips off this fall.
The Highlanders, who reached the regional tournament last season for the second consecutive year, lost a pair of key seniors to graduation in Dylan Johnson, the team’s leading scorer, and Shane Holloway, a 6-11 center who was capable of dominating around the basket. But that doesn’t mean the cupboard is bare. Eureka Springs returns senior Michael Lester, a capable scorer and tenacious defender who coach Brian Rambo says has taken on a bigger leadership role this summer, along with a talented if undersized crop of sophomores.
Rambo acknowledges he was a little concerned heading into the summer, but the results so far have eased his mind. The Highlanders have attended three team camps so far.
“I think we’re ahead of schedule,” Rambo said. “We lost quite a few seniors and the bulk of our scoring,” Rambo said. “But I’ve got about six pretty good sophomores. Again, they’re sophomores, but they’ve really matured over the last two months or so. Physically we’re not quite there yet. That’s going to take some time. But fundamentally, they’re getting much better.”
Lester will play a key role going forward.
“Michael has been tremendous this summer,” Rambo said. “He really has. He plays so dadgum hard. He’s so physical, so strong, and he’s been a good leader. So those other guys are kind of falling in line with him a little bit.”
With less size to depend on in the halfcourt, Rambo said the Highlanders will be more aggressive defensively in looking to create scoring opportunities.
“It’s definitely going to change the way we do things,” he said. “We’re going to try to play a little bit faster. We’re going to try and be more aggressive on defense to try to make some turnovers happen because we’re going to struggle to score in the halfcourt because we will be small. And so we’re going to try and change the pace of the game to create easy baskets for us and hopefully can disrupt some other teams. So it’s much, much different than what we’ve done the last year or two.”
Rambo said it likely will take the Highlanders a little time to really hit their stride.
“It will be a little helter- skelter, especially in the beginning,” he said. “There will be a little lack of control. But the kids will love it, the fans will love it and I’ll be gray-headed by Christmastime.”
All kidding aside, Rambo knows he’ll have to be patient, as the Highlanders’ need to gamble a bit on defense could mean giving up some easy baskets at times.
“With this system, you have to just let them go out there and trust in them,” Rambo said. “So it takes away some control from me. It’ll be a little bit nerve-wracking on my end because we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to take a little risk defensively, so we’re going to give up some things. I kind of have to sit back and trust that in the course of a 32-minute basketball game, we’re going to make less mistakes than they do.”
The Highlanders are scheduled to start the season Oct. 17 at Jasper.
