By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– Tyler Lewis knows a thing or two about basketball around the Salem-area.
He played his High School ball at West Salem High School, graduating in 2007 before getting into coaching. Slowly working his way up to where he was at Monday afternoon, the week before the official start to his tenure as Sprague High School Head Boys Basketball Coach.
It was a weird feeling for Lewis when he came to Sprague last season as an assistant under then-Head Coach Jordan Graneto. His last High School game as a player was at Sprague High School, and then, last year when he got his coaching gear, he felt like he officially crossed enemy lines.
But that quickly faded as he, and the Olympians, went on to have one of those great seasons. A 24-5 overall record and a fourth-place finish in 6A.
Though Sprague graduated nine seniors from that squad and Lewis enters Year 1 as Head Coach with a brand new team, Lewis is looking to run a similar system to what Graneto ran during his time as Head Coach at Sprague.
“He ran a lot of five-out motion and we will run a lot of five-out motion, how we will get into our motion will be different. I think it’ll look different in transition,” said Lewis. “Defensively, a lot of the same principals. Some of the nuances of how we play defense may be a little bit different. I think with the personnel that we have, we’ll have to be a lot more attention to detail and be a lot more disciplined.”
With two returners in Elijah Schmidt and Lane Isham, the motivation is there for the squad to rise to the occasion and showcase the work they’ve been putting in over the off-season when the ball tips-off for their jamboree on December 3 at Oregon City before heading to Bend on December 3 for their first game of the season.
“It motivates me, I know it motivates them and we talk about that a bit over the Spring. A lot of our Varsity guys were in the weight room and in the gym all Summer. I’m excited for them to prove people wrong through their hard work, it’s all them. They’ve been putting in the time and effort, the energy is good,” said Lewis.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
