By Jeremy McDonald
SCIO, Ore.– Last season was one of those near-historic seasons for the Scio Boys Basketball team when they got to the 3A State Playoffs.
It was just the program’s second-ever Playoff appearance, and first since they won state all the way back in 1981. Ironically they defeated the same team in 2025 as they did for the title that year in Warrenton in the 3A First Round as the Loggers reached the 3A State second round before their run came to an end.
“It was awesome. To accomplish something that the school hasn’t done in a long time, us not being known as a basketball school, it’s just a big accomplishment,” said Brycen Zosel. “Our coaches are proud of us and we’re just looking forward to continuing that momentum into this year.”
And that’ll be the trick. To prove that last year wasn’t a fluke year for the program. They graduated some big seniors, but they return some of that playoff nucleus this year.
Zoel, Rhondan Meadows and Haydin Tibbs will be those big names expected to fill the void left by those graduating seniors from last year.
“They’ll step up big into those roles this year for us,” said Head Coach Jesse Gerig-Heyerly.
Gerig-Heyerly returns to the boys basketball team as Head Coach, having last coached the program in 2020 before serving the last few years as Head Coach for the Girls Basketball program. And as they went to work on Friday morning, he’s hoping that they can continue off that base, that foundation, they the program laid last year.
“We’ve worked a bunch on putting the work in every single day in practice. A lot of these young guys who played JV last year, I’ve been really impressed by their work that they did in the off-season and really buying in to what we as coaches this year, especially on the defensive end,” said Gerig-Heyerly. “It’s been a really big focus on defense. I’m excited to see these guys in their first actual game on Varsit, but i think they’ll play well.”
Defensive consistency was their weakness last season. Some games they played last season came down to a small stretch of bad luck on defense the ultimately decided a few games against Scio.
But with Summer League and so far in practice going into their first game next week, they’ve been working hard on that side of the ball to make sure that they are ready to go come December 3.
“That’s the one thing we struggle with is consistency, but the more we keep practicing at it, it’s going to get better,” said Meadows. “It’s significantly increased since Summer Ball when we were playing. If we keep working at it, our consistency goes up. “
The Loggers will open the season December 3 at home against Molalla. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30pm
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
