Siloam Springs benefiting from last year’s state title
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
SILOAM SPRINGS — Coach Jason McMahan was told by some that a program can get satisfied after winning its first state championship.
But not in Siloam Springs.
“ I’ve found the opposite of what people said, ” McMahan said. “ You more than ever want to do it again because it was so much fun. Our team practiced more precise and smarter but at the same time just as hard as we were because we liked it so much.
“ Our program benefited from that. ”
The Panthers will also benefit from having senior starters Coleson Rakestraw and Ryan Ostrander return from the Class 5 A championship team.
Rakestraw, a 6-foot-3 guard, led the team with 21. 7 points and a school-record 109 threepointers last year.
He was named the state tournament MVP and The Daily Record’s Player of the Year. He’ll sign with John Brown University on Monday.
“ If you ever talk to Coleson, he’s such a quiet guy, ” McMahan said. “ He practices harder than anybody we’ve got. He’s one of the last of a generation of gym rats. He does it more by example. ”
Ostrander, a 5-10 point guard, is smart on and off the court. He and Rakestraw have a combined ACT score of 60, their coach says.
“ Ryan’s intelligence transfers to game IQ, ” McMahan added. “ He makes really smart plays that we could never teach. He continues to do those things. ”
“ We’ve had really good practices because of those two guys. And when you play games, those two guys are going to be calm because they’ve been to the mountain top. They’re not going to panic or be afraid of anybody. ”
Like last year, the Panthers will feature a four-guard lineup.
Like Rakestraw and Ostrander, junior Justin Gray (5-10 ) and sophomore Kyle Teague (5-11 ) have both played point guard before.
All can score although Teague is more of a true point guard, McMahan says.
Six-foot-four left-handed forward Dylan Henson rounds out the starting five.
“ Those kids have really worked hard and put in time in the weight room, ” McMahan said. “ They’ve spent extra time (in the gym ). They’ve followed Coleson’s leadership in that. ”
The Panthers, who went 22-8 and finished second in the 5 AWest Conference, will get some help when football season ends. The Panthers are missing four players, including 6-foot senior Nick Brill.
“ Brill is going to help us based on what he did this summer, ” McMahan said.
Before getting into the tough 5 A-West schedule — McMahan says Harrison and Greenbrier should be the favorites — the Panthers have a tough nonconference schedule that starts tonight at Springdale.
The Panthers also play Gravette, Huntsville and Rogers and will play in the Benton County Tournament and a tournament at Har-Ber that will feature the host Wildcats, Shiloh Christian, Little Rock Christian and out-of-state teams from Texas and Oklahoma.
“ We’ve upped our schedule a little bit by playing those people, ” McMahan said. “(Springdale will ) test us right off.
“ It will get us ready for the state tournament to see those kind of athletes. That should be good for us. ”
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