Josh Ihrke returns for his second full season at the helm of the Becker Bulldog boys basketball team. He should have plenty to be excited about as his squad is comprised of seven seniors and seven juniors — all who are superb athletes and many coming off bringing a state title to Becker High School on the football team.
Taylor Dawson, Dawson Brown, Blake Barthel, Michael Veldman, Tanner Neidenfeuhr, Jake Fobbe, Andrew Stanger, Cody Gruenhagen, Clayton Gallus, Matt Conzemius and Dillon Radunz all helped lead the Bulldog football team to a state title and they hope to do the same with the basketball team in the Granite Ridge Conference and beyond.
Last year, the team had to endure two losses — the loss of long-time Head Coach Regan Anderson and the death of school and teammate Anthony Nelson. This year, they hope to look forward and not behind as they continue to remake a basketball team eager to improve dramatically.
Ihrke, (pronounced “erky”) is a six-year tenured teacher (math) and coach in the Becker School district. Ihrke was the JV girls basketball coach under Paul Lindsay a few years ago and he brought energy and passion to the game last year that was sorely needed.
Ihrke’s assistant coaches are Anthony Miller, Brian Kuseske and Dan Baird and the student managers are Anthony Agnew and Cole Hanson.
The team played their first game of the year this past Thursday on the road at Princeton. Their first home game of the year is today (Saturday) against Sartell.
The team consists of Dawson, Brown, Barthel, Veldman, Neidenfeuhr, Fobbe, Stanger, Gruenhagen, Gallus, Radunz, Matt Yoerg, Andrew Davalos, Mitchell Phelps, Zack Moeller and Hunter McCalla.
Veldman, who led the Bulldog football team as QB to the state title, has a different role with the basketball team as they will expect him to be one of their top scorers. Dawson Brown can be a beast under the basket with rebounding and also has a nose for the net and should have a big year.
Stanger, who missed the last couple playoff football games because of a high ankle sprain, hopes to be fully healthy soon as he is looked upon to captain the team down the floor and distribute the ball.
Gruenhagen, with good speed and great defense, will be hard to defend and penetrate and Barthel should continue to mature into a force while scoring and defending his team’s basket.
Davalos has sneaky moves and is not afraid to slice through the tall centers of other teams on his way to the bucket. Conzemius and Radunz have good size and will cause matchup problems for visiting teams on both ends of the court.
Fobbe will share some time at point and shooting guard and has good ball possession skills. Yoerg should see some quality playing time as a junior this year as well as Gallus.
Moeller is progressing into a special kind of player and Neidenfeuhr, Phelps, McCalla, Gallus who have all matured and look ready to contribute to the team in 2014-15.
Becker 72, Princeton 63
The boys opened their season on the road at Princeton Thursday and came away with an impressive nine-point win to start 1-0.
No other information was made available to the Citizen by press time.
