Magicians Boys Basketball Preview

This year's Minot High boys Basketball team has plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the upcomi...  More »

This year's Minot High boys Basketball team has plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the upcoming season. The Magicians, who finished 4th at state last year have 32 seniors and juniors are out for this year's team, the most in many years. Add to that fact that the team returns 3 starters off of last year's squad and will feature both size and speed and it's no wonder that the Magicians can't wait to hit the court. Gene Manson, MHS boys basketball coach:We got three starters that are returning. We got Ryan Tarasenko who came in midway through the year and started and Ryne Hornecker and Zac Elgie. Both returning all-conference players who started the whole schedule for us. So those are the three kids that we're starting out with that are back from last year. But we had a number of kids Mike that played some time. Gary Heitkamp is one that I think really improved this year. He's gonna fit in really nice for us. A lot of kids have stepped it up for us over the summer and hopefully we'll be able to fill in with those kids. Ryne Hornecker, senior:This group of guys that we're gonna have on the team this year has been together as long as I can remember. We gotta work hard. We've got very lofty goals this year particularly winning a state championship so we gotta work hard throughout the year and hopefully it ends up that way. Gary Heitkamp, senior:Our big guys can all run. Aaron, Zac and I can all run. Then we got guards that really want to push it. It's gonna be fun running the floor like that. The Magicians battled in a tough, balanced region last year and it could be a very balanced region again this year. Manson:It's gonna be a dogfight I think between six teams when you look at it. Us and Bismarck, Dickinson, Century's got all five starters back so they're gonna be solid. Williston's got a good ballclub back, Mandan's got a good ballclub. You take any of those six on any given night can beat anybody else so it's gonna be a dogfight. The Magicians open their season December 6th at Bismarck.  « Less