Deep, talented Chesterton boys basketball squad takes on a giant, No. 4 South Bend St. Joseph, in tonight’s season-opener, a 6:30 tipoff at home

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The Chesterton boys basketball season opens tonight at home with the Trojans skipping the wading pool and diving right into the deep end.
A South Bend St. Joseph squad ranked No. 4 in the state in the 4A poll visits for an estimated 6:30 p.m. tipoff against a Chesterton squad that is listed in the “others receiving votes” category in the poll.
The talent on the court and the energy in a building at a school that has not been host to a boys varsity basketball game since defeating Culver Academies, 52-40, on Feb. 28 promise to scream Indiana high school basketball.
“I think you can feel the excitement around our team now,” 10th-year Chesterton coach Marc Urban said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve played a home game.”
Urban anticipates that the crowd will do more to help Chesterton than to hurt a St. Joe team that finished its past two seasons playing at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
“The environment definitely plays a big role in our guys’ confidence but they’re a very veteran team they’ve played in back-to-back state championships and won one at the buzzer, and they have three starters returning so they’ve played in really big environments, so they’re not a young team by any means," Urban said. "They’re coming into an environment that’s going to freak them out, but it should be a very fun high school basketball environment.”
The game is an opener for both schools because their originally scheduled openers were postponed. Chesterton's game at Elkhart has been rescheduled for Dec. 27 at 1:30 p.m.
In St. Joseph, Chesterton faces a team promoted to 4A after winning a 3A state championship last March. The Huskies have three returning starters, one who has committed to play at Notre Dame, a top reserve, and two key transfers on the roster.
The Huskies won a home game vs. turnover-plagued Chesterton, 77-55, last December. Ethan Roseman and Elijah King shared scoring honors for the Wolves in that one with 15 points and Braylen White scored 10 points off the bench. Those three return and so does senior Nick Shrewsberry, a prolific 3-point shooter who will join his brother, Braeden, to play for their father, Micah, at Notre Dame on scholarship. King, a junior, also is being recruited by Division I schools.
A pair of transfers Chesterton has played against also have joined the Huskies. Peyton Miamba, a 6-foot-6 forward, scored 21 points for Penn in a 19-point win over a visiting Chesterton squad that was without sidelined Logan Pokorney. Also, KJ Avery, a 6-2 guard, transferred from Valparaiso to St. Joseph.
Chesterton returns plenty of varsity experience as well, including five players in the starting lineup at the end of last season.
Pokorney, a 6-4 third-year sharpshooter bound for Taylor University, and 6-7 sophomore Bradly Basila, who had not yet moved to Chesterton from the Democratic Republic of Congo when the Trojans suffered the lopsided losses to St. Joe and Penn last December, rank high on the list of concerns for any opponent.
Soft-shooting, hard-driving Third-year starter 6-0 Tobias Ray directs the team from his point guard position, the versatile 6-2 wing Jaylon Watts, a scoring threat from anywhere on the court, and 6-7 senior Caden Schneider, a skilled passer from the high post and a 3-point shooting threat, round out the starting lineup.
Junior sixth man Malachi Ransom, the team’s quickest player, and sophomore 3-point shooter deluxe Cooper Huwig, both lefties, energize the Trojans off the bench in different ways. Gunner Ello, a 6-5 power player, is the first big man reserve, and 6-6 sophomore Tommy Kostbade, an athletic player with 3-point shooting range, also adds frontcourt depth. Ethan Virgil, a 6-2 junior who can get hot from 3, adds to the depth.
“It will be nice to finally play a game,” Urban said. “We’ve had a lot of practices since the fall, and I mean, practices. It wasn’t like an open gym. We were getting after it.”