“The Wildcats boys’ basketball team was physical and had a lot of talent last season. This year, it’s time to rebuild.Last year’s team posted a record of 4-9 in league play and was 7-13 overall, with a lot of games that came down to the wire and were lost by four points or less. Unfortunately, all but one of the players from last year’s team were seniors and moved on. Head coach Frank Hunter knows he has a daunting task ahead of his team, as the Wildcats must start from scratch and claw their way through the season. With only one returning kid from the varsity we are going to be playing some young kids. We’ll be very inexperienced, said Hunter. We’re playing a lot of young talent. With most of the kids that will start on the varsity squad playing almost exclusively on the junior varsity squad last season, size may play a very large part in how well the team plays.Last year we had good size at every position, but this year we are going to be very small, said Hunter. Our biggest kid is 6-foot-3. The lack of size is a challenge going into the season but presents an opportunity for the coach to do some new things. He admits that the Cats are going to have to take advantage of their speed and play a bit loose on the defensive end.We are going to have to change defenses and we are going to have to play a little bit more zone than we did last year, said Hunter.There’s only one starter returning to the squad this year, senior Chad Riepma. Hunter sees a leadership role for Riepma, especially on the court. Hunter views this year as a challenge and a chance to really teach the kids the game. Both are things he loves to do. I think the positive side of working with a bunch of young kids is that this is an exciting opportunity, he said. We are working with a lot of kids that have raw skills and kids that don’t have a lot of experience. It becomes our responsibility to do a lot more teaching than we have done in the past.When it comes to coaching, Hunter wants everything that his players can give him, on and off the court. The thing we are really focusing in on is that the kids play hard every night, said Hunter It’s easy for kids to get discouraged and our job is to really focus in on being demanding this year but also being encouraging, positive and real supportive of the kids. The coach knows that the team may be in for a long haul this season but he also knows that the team can gain more from the season than just a good record.Hopefully by the end of the year they aren’t going to judge the season on wins and loses, but if they learned the game, became a better person and if they had success as far as the effort that they put forth, said Hunter.The team has done their share of off-season work as they played in a spring league in Mt. Vernon, went to summer camp at Gonzaga University, played weekend tournaments during the summer and practiced every Monday.The youth of the team could be a plus and a minus depending on how the kids respond, according to Hunter.We are going to play some sophomores this year and you never know how they will respond, said Hunter Sometimes they can be very intimidated because they are being thrown into the deep end of the pool, but some kids get very excited about it and they respond and become a better player and better people because of it. Hunter says that he knows how lucky the team is to have the kind of support that the community provides.I have always said that Oak Harbor, in terms of support in the stands number of kids in the stands and so forth, is the best in the league, said Hunter. “