Brady Harris
COWAN — Lee Ingles gave his Cowan Blackhawks a choice for Wednesday’s practice – either after school like most teams or before school at 6 a.m.
The Blackhawks are eager to build on a vastly-improved 2014-15 campaign, thus the early-morning wake-up call. They practice before school two or three times per week during the preseason, Ingles will bring the players doughnuts to snack on as they head off to class and the Blackhawks begin their day intent on taking the next step as a program.
Cowan went 1-19 in 2013-14 before improving to 9-13 last season – Ingles’ first after moving from Michigan with his son, junior point guard Shea Ingles. Going from one win to nine isn’t nearly as difficult as going from nine to 13 or 14 wins, which is Cowan’s goal.
“You got to nine and that’s a great accomplishment, as we took really good strides,” Lee Ingles said. “But you have to work so much harder to get from nine to where you want to go than when you went to nine. You can’t make little mistakes and beat those teams. We’re really pushing them that way.
“That’s a good question. Where do we go? Because it’s not easy.”
The foundation is there with senior guards Clayton Klipinger (13.2 points per game) and Brady Harris (10.2 ppg), the latter coming off a season in which he set a single-season record for 3-pointers with 50. Breydn Weston is an undersized center at 6-foot-1 but plays physical.
Shea Ingles
That gives Shea Ingles, who averaged six assists last season, plenty of options.
“We have a lot of weapons,” Shea Ingles said, “a lot of different people that can do different things.”
The Blackhawks started 1-8 last season, and the biggest issue was that they rushed shots and sometimes didn’t know which shots to take. But there were also a lot of improvements, like cutting their turnovers per game from 29 in 2013-14 to just 11 last season.
As a result, Cowan went through a stretch in which it went 8-3.
“We had a lot of games last year that we couldn’t seem to close out,” Harris said. “But we kept working and working, and towards the end of the year, we learned how to close them out. Those close games, we got them this time. Honestly, I think we got nervous.”
Lee Ingles said it was just a matter of getting over the hump last season. And there’s another hump the Blackhawks must get over this season, and it’s even more of a challenge.
“Good things are coming, but they don’t come without hard work,” Lee Ingles said. “Now people know that you can play, so things are going to change a little bit. We’ve raised the bar a little bit, which is good. We want those expectations, and we’ll do our best to go meet them.”
Contact sports features writer Ryan O’Gara at (765) 213-5829. Follow him on Twitter @RyanOGaraTSP.