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Sports
Action-packed summer : Sports : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisAction-packed summer
| Oswego East boys' basketball team has success at shootouts
| by Kristin Sharp
| 8/2/2012
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The months of June and July were a busy but productive time for the Oswego East boys' basketball team.
Not only did the team adapt to the missing faces of graduated starters and the addition of new faces hopeful to contribute to the 2012-13 varsity squad, but the Wolves also worked with first-year head coach Ron Murphy.
The former assistant coach assumed his new role after his hire this past April, and Murphy has enjoyed a relatively seamless transition.
Oswego East posted a 14-14 finish to the 2011-12 season under former head coach Jason Buckley, who resigned from the position in late March. Buckley has been the only varsity head coach for the boys' basketball program since its inaugural varsity season in 2005-06. Buckley is now the athletic director at West Aurora High School.
Although Oswego East graduated Southwest Prairie All-Conference player Kalmon Stokes and All-SPC Second Team selection Kenny Battle, the Wolves return a core of its varsity lineup, including incoming senior CJ Vaughan, who will play his third varsity season this winter.
"Fortunately, we've got a great base built here. Jason did an outstanding job and I've been fortunate to be part of the program for the last few years," Murphy said. "In that respect, the transition has been a little easier. The fundamental principles don't change, and that's big for us. This is really a good group of kids. They work hard and they're high character kids.
"CJ is back and he's a kid who will be a three-year starter. He's played real well this summer so we're excited to have a kid like him back," Murphy said. "Kendall Dorsey is another kid who was really impressive at times this summer. He played a little bit at the end of last season, but he'll be a key for us. He's a great athlete and an incredibly hard-working kid. He really elevated his game this summer, which was good to see."
Oswego East hosted its annual 36-team shootout in early June to kick off the summer offseason.
"We had a lot of great competition with the teams and it was a good gauge to see where we were at," Murphy said. "We only had a few days of camp going into that, and itw as good to see where we were at. That went well."
The Wolves also entered the West Aurora Hoop Mountain Shootout and won its pool, going 4-1 overall after a loss to Warren.
"We're finding out that when we play hard, our team is pretty good," Murphy said. "On the flipside, if we don't play hard we can be pretty mediocre. That's what summer is all about. You get an idea of who is capable of what. We played a lot of different groups and mixed different kids together to see how the function when they're on the floor together."
Oswego East also spent time at the Illinois Wesleyan team camp in addition to hosting its own team camp this summer.
"We went to Illinois Wesleyan for a team camp, which is great because it exposes our kids to the college atmosphere in terms of what a college looks like, what it's lie to stay in the dorm," Murphy said. "We spend a lot of time together and get an opportunity for the kids to know kids on the team that they don't necessarily hang out with outside of basketball."
Oswego East will have open gym throughout the offseason in addition to spending time in the weight room in advance of the Nov. 5 start date for the 2012-13 season.
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