The Orcas boys junior varsity basketball team played 15 games this season and only lost three.

Coach Chuck Todd said, “This is made more remarkable since the junior varsity basketball program over the last five years has suffered losses and fans were starting to lose interest in our game. I’ve had these young people since they were sophomores and juniors and I have to say the varsity team has a lot to look forward to; when we beat powerhouses like La Conner and Concrete, I knew these young people had great potential. We did lose twice to the Friday Harbor Wolverines, but they are a bigger school with a bigger pool to choose from.

“One of our turning points came when we went into overtime with La Conner and lost. I could see this made a big impact on the boys. Then we played our last game of the season against La Conner and we beat La Conner 51-54. They finally realized that they could beat anyone.”

There are no playoffs in the program to get into state with a junior varsity team. The Orcas junior varsity boys’ basketball team started out with two coaches in 2008 but one of the coaches didn’t work out from a personality perspective. So Todd, the assistant coach, became the head coach. Todd played college football and basketball, and lettered in four sports when he was in high school. He’d like to see the varsity team profit from the good underpinnings of a successful junior varsity team.

“We really focused on a very good defense. I’d say we won most games with defense,” said Todd. “So I went with a man to man deny defense. We didn’t do a lot of full court pressing; but we did do a lot of half court trapping. We lured the point guard of the other team into a place and then pressure him to give up the ball. It worked really well.

“For the entire year,” Todd said, “The guys rose up together and they fell together. They never gave up and they always trusted one another. All the guys they beat this year they will face during the next three years. Tommy Granger, Michael Langworthy, and Jacob Hansen were especially helpful and gave the team the kind of tenacity and strength necessary to maintain the focus and drive to win on the court.”