PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Some might look with dread at the prospect of starting a new season without a 1,000-point scorer — the same guy who averaged 28 points per game while leading his team to the Northern Maine Class B basketball semifinals last February.
Presque Isle High School boys basketball coach Terry Cummings is certainly not one of those people.
“This is certainly not a rebuild,” said Cummings, now in his eighth season on the bench for the Wildcats. “We’re returning eight guys who lettered last season. Guys will have to step up, but that is no different from any other year.”
The departed 1,000-point scorer, of course, is Griffin Guerrette, now playing at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Cummings said the biggest question mark in Guerrette’s absence will be which player is going to take the reins of the offense when the game is in the balance.
“The guys that deferred to Griffin last year are starting to take on more of a leadership role,” Cummings said. “We’ll need that if we’re going to be successful. I think that loss made them hungrier.”
The Wildcats, who finished third in the regular season standings last year before falling to Mount Desert Island in the regional semifinals, also will be without starter Adam Paterson and a few others who graduated. Cummings has a few ideas how those voids will be filled, beginning with his starting backcourt of senior guard Jonah Hudson and junior guard Caleb Wheaton, who will handle most of the scoring load.
Senior center Trace Cyr averaged a double-double toward the end of last season, and Cummings said the expectation is for that to continue in his final season. Senior wing Jason Dumais looks likely to crack the starting lineup after tearing his ACL as a junior, with senior forwards Jacob Sjoberg and Carter Rice vying for the fifth spot in the starting rotation. Senior guard Cole Paterson looks like a lock to be the first guard off the bench in the early stages of the year.
Senior guard William Bridges, senior forward Nagoo Morey, senior forward Ty Schneider, junior guard Sam Beaulieu and junior forward Noah Flynn round out the roster.
“The great thing is that all 12 guys that we have can contribute,” Cummings said. “It’s hard to get all 12 in every game, but that’s a good problem to have. We’ve always gone with roughly an eight-man rotation, but there isn’t a huge drop off from 8 to 12.”
Cummings said that the quality of his roster from top to bottom will be one of the Wildcats’ biggest strengths this year given their up-tempo style that features a lot of full-court pressure and run-and-jump looks on the defensive end.
“We don’t have a lot of superstars. It’s just a good group of hard-nosed kids who believe in themselves,” Cummings said. “If you have guys that are going to come out and lay it on the line for you every night, you’ll have a good year.
“Our biggest question mark might be rebounding, at both ends of the court,” he added. “We’re not incredibly big, so everyone’s going to have to do the job. We can’t be giving up three or four opportunities to the other team every other possession.”
