Preseason Coaches Poll
1. Bear Lake
2. West Side
3. Soda Springs
4. Aberdeen
5. Malad
Players to Watch
Bryler Shurtliff, West Side
Blaize Brown, West Side
Easton Henderson, West Side
Brady Shaul, Bear Lake
Justice Bright, Aberdeen
Tugg Kapp, Soda Springs
Hayden McWilliams, Soda Springs
Wade Sims, Soda Springs
Andrew Walker, Soda Springs
Written by: Keller Sherman
Take the final standings from the Southeast Idaho Conference from last season with a grain of salt. Despite what last year’s standings say, just about every team in the five team league can find a way to be competitive in 2021.
West Side and Bear Lake emerge as the early prohibitive preseason favorites to win the conference and take the league’s two spots at the state tournament, but a case can be made for just about every other team to have a shot as well. West Side coach Tyler Brown knows this better than anyone so buckle up and get ready for what could be an exciting conference race in the 2021-22 season.
Since winning back-to-back state titles in 2017 and 2018, Bear Lake has not been able to bring home another banner to Montpelier, but after taking the consolation bracket last season, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Bear Lake can make a deeper run at state this season.
Several key players return for the Bears, including two players that received all-conference honors in Brady Shaul and Keaton Carlsen. With the addition of several players that will be new to varsity this season, their efforts will be key in filling in holes left behind by last year’s seniors.
Among the departures are Owen Teuscher, whom coach Brandon Carlsen states, “had been a 3 year starter and was a good shooter and rebounder, and led the team in scoring.” Also gone from last year’s team were rebounding machines Matthew Hammond and Briston Schriber.
While every conference game is described by Carlsen as “wild”, one game that he is more excited for than the others is against West Side. The Bears were blown out by the Pirates in the 2A semifinals in football a month ago as West Side went on to win their 3rd straight state title, but the postseason result against the Pirates on the hardwood was much more satisfactory as Carlsen’s squad upset West Side in the district championship game in basketball last season.
Carlsen felt that his squad excelled at improving as the season went on with a mix of returning and first year players. “We had some 2-3 year returning players and some first year varsity players last year,” Carlsen says. “We struggled early but continued to get better as the year went on and we hope to pick up where we left off.” Even with this area of strength, Carlsen knows that his team will “need to work more on rebounding and being consistent on offense.”
West Side will look to continue its run at the top of the conference this season and they will return multiple seniors highlighted by Bryler Shurtliff, Blaize Brown, and Easton Henderson. Shurtliff was a 1st team All-State selection. West Side head coach Tyler Brown feels that no one departure from last season’s team hurts more than the other as his team “lost some good seniors and we will miss their leadership.”
He will look to Parker Henderson, Hayden Robinson, and Ryker Love to come up to varsity and make an impact as he states “all will have to step up for us to have a good year.”
While a first place finish in the conference last season is an impressive mark for any team, Brown knows that for his team to get there, they will have to navigate a challenging schedule and for that, Brown looks forward to every single game his Pirates squad takes part in this season. “They will all be tough,” Brown says. “We’ll have to show up and play well to compete.” Finishing out strong will be an area of focus for the Pirates this season as the team lost two straight games to Bear Lake in the district tournament and went two and out at state.
Soda Springs brings in a 1st year head coach in Ryan Yamauchi. Yamauchi does not see any returning player to be more important than the others as he states, “All of the players on the team are key in our program as the number of basketball players is few. The seniors have some varsity experience; two of them have significant varsity experience. Their ability to play situationally correct basketball and develop leadership skills, coupled with the emergence of some of the younger players will be key to team success.”
The Cardinals return four seniors this season in Tugg Kapp, Hayden McWilliams, Wade Sims, and Andrew Walker. Soda Springs also graduated four seniors last season highlighted by Brittan Bergholm, a point guard that led the team in scoring.
Every matchup is important in Yamauchi’s eyes as he states, “We are looking forward to every matchup, and formulating our team identity.” He declined to comment on the team's strengths and weaknesses “out of respect for the past coaching staff.”
Aberdeen struggled to a 1-7 record in conference play last season with the lone conference win coming against Malad while finishing 5-13 overall. Even with how mightily the Tigers struggled last season, they are still seen by other conference members as a team that can step up and surprise some people this season.
Bear Lake coach Brandon Carlsen states, “They have a young group that have been together and now they are juniors.” Soda Springs coach Ryan Yamauchi adds, “Aberdeen is a team with good athleticism and speed. They also may have more depth than they've had in the past. On any given night, they could make things extremely difficult on their opponent.” Look out for Aberdeen to potentially pull off a major upset at some point or another this season.
Malad was the other bottomfeeder last season, but the Dragons are not a team to be slept on either. It’s only been two years since Malad last went to state and the result was winning the consolation bracket. However, it will take a major turnaround in Oneida County if Malad is to flip the script and have a much better season, but coaches around the conference are not writing off the Dragons as a contender in the league.