Louisburg boys look to regroup for 24-25 season

Despite its ups and downs last season, the Louisburg boys basketball team found itself one victory away from earning a spot in the state tournament. 

The Wildcats fell to Baldwin, the eventual fourth place finisher at state, in the sub-state championship and ended its season strong under then first-year coach Ben Doll.

This season, Doll and the Wildcats will face a new set of challenges. Louisburg will have to figure out how to replace the production from seven departing players, including five seniors that all played big roles on last year’s team. 

Louisburg does return three players who saw significant varsity minutes, and even started at times, in point guard Myles Vohs and forwards Luke Schultz and Gavin Lohse.

“I mean it will look a lot different because we basically have no returning starters, but we do have three returning guys who played a lot last year and started at moments, so that’s good. We will be working around those three guys to start out with and Myles, Luke and Gavin will have to play a lot and they understand that.

“We will be doing a lot of things to try to try to get them shots and then also, hopefully we can avoid foul trouble and things like that. Those guys, I think we’ll be huge for our team this year and will carry us.”

Vohs was one of the team’s top defenders last season as he led the way with 30 steals, while Lohse was the team’s second leading rebounder. Schultz, who missed part of last season with an injury, still averaged close to five points per game and had 42 rebounds.

Doll knows those numbers will only grow for those three players and is excited to see who will fill those voids in the lineup.

“Myles is just a good leader and he just runs the show and is athletic and kind of understands what we’re supposed to be doing,” Doll said. “The things I’m starting to see in practice is I think actually we’re probably gonna rebound pretty well because Gavin’s a great rebounder and Luke has knack for getting to the right spots and at good angles and stuff like that. So I’ve been really excited, even though we lost some size from last year, that we still got two guys that can get a lot of get a lot done.” 

Senior Ethan Kush, who saw a handful of varsity games last season, will contribute. Senior newcomer Aiden Kennedy, who stands at 6-4, will give the Wildcats some size in the paint.

Senior guard Billy Vohs, another newcomer, could also see some minutes along with junior guard Derek Frederick.

“Aiden Kennedy is coming on this year and he’s a big body and he definitely will grab a fair share of rebounds so I kind of feel like we’re going to get a lot of second chances,” Doll said. “Hopefully most teams that we play don’t have the same amount of bigs or athleticism that we have and we should be pretty good at controlling the boards.

“There’s a few younger guys that are stepping in and coming up from the JV that that have done a good job like Derek Frederick. He is filling a good role as a shooter and kind of taking up some of the scoring that we had last year. I think he’ll do a good job there as a new guy coming into the lineup.”

It will be a challenging schedule for the Wildcats this season as they will play every Frontier League team twice. The league currently has three teams ranked in the top 10 in Class 4A in Baldwin (No. 2), Ottawa (No. 4) and Eudora (No. 10). Louisburg will open its season Friday at home against Tonganoxie.

“Baldwin, obviously, I think is still the best team and with the best player in the league, so it’ll be tough to stop,” Doll said. “They’ll be really good and then Ottawa will be as well and we have both those teams before the break. So we’re gonna get right to it, and the rest of the schedule is always just tough.”

For a younger, inexperienced team, Doll knows it will be a challenge early, but knows they will be a different team later in the year. 

“Expectations are gonna evolve through the year because the nice thing about basketball at the high school and college level is you want to be playing your best at the end when it comes playoff time,” Doll said. “So that’s going to be our main goal, is to keep building and getting stronger. Going 5-0, 2-3 or 1-4 in December, it doesn’t seem to matter as much when you get to February, so we just want to use these first games and everything to keep building on something that will be sustainable in February and March. I think we have enough young guys that are going to eventually add to us that I think will be a lot better in February.”