The word “special” is getting tossed around the Bayfield High School boys basketball team a lot entering the 2014-2015 season.
BHS, which will open its season at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at BHS, against Aztec, returns four of its top five scorers from a team that finished 11-9 last season, the Wolverines’ best mark since 2010.
“I think we’ve got a special team this year. We’ve got a lot of talent,” said BHS senior Dillon Hoselton, son of Rick and Stephanie Hoselton. “We had a lot of people come back form last year. We’ve definitely got something special.”
They will bring six seniors to the group, including Hoselton, that have played together since third grade.
That group also includes Aubry Brown, Trevor Gabbard, Preston Hardy, Conner Kennedy and Luke Webb.
“I think we’re versatile. We have big guys, we have guards, and we have a deep bench,” said Hardy, son of Garth and Monna Hardy.
That group and the rest of the team will be under the direction of head coach Jeff Lehnus, who returns to the Wolverines’ bench after Randy Stephens coached the team last year.
Lehnus last coached the team in 2005 and also made stops at Durango High School and Farmington and Shiprock in New Mexico. He first joined the Wolverines’ staff in 1999 after spending a year as an assistant coach at Fort Lewis College.
In the intervening years, Lehnus chose to focus on teaching, eventually becoming head of Bayfield’s history department and dean of students at BHS.
“My deepest passion, the thing that brings me the greatest joy, I had to get back to,” he said after being hired in May. “I love the game of basketball, and I enjoy working with young people.”
Lehnus has brought structure and intensity to the Wolverines’ practices, an edge his players appreciate.
“Everything’s structured. Practice is go, go, go, we’re never taking a break, which is nice because that’s how it is in a game,” Hardy said. “He’s very, very organized, very detailed, knows what he wants out of his team. It’s a very good relationship. We trust each other.”
Hardy is Bayfield’s leading returning scorer and rebounder from last year. The 6-6 Colorado Christian commit averaged nearly a double-double last year at 13.8 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. Three other returning players averaged more than six points per game for the Wolverines last year.
BHS played Durango High School and Ignacio High School in preseason scrimmages and displayed knockdown shooting ability from nearly every position.
“It definitely makes us more dangerous because, when we drive, we’ve got open shooters to push it to,” Hoselton said.
The Wolverines will need every advantage they can get as they will face one of their tougher schedules in recent years.
After Thursday’s opener against Aztec, BHS travels to a tournament in Buena Vista that will feature Jefferson Academy, a Class 3A state tournament regular, among other teams.
The Wolverines also will travel to Blanding, Utah, to play San Juan and to a tournament in Aztec, New Mexico, before opening Intermountain League play and renewing their Pine River rivalry with Ignacio.
Lehnus said he wanted to make a more challenging schedule because a team can only get better by playing in difficult games.
It’s a challenge the team embraces.
“It’s easy to share the ball and play and have fun when it’s easy,” Hardy said. “But when things get rough and you get a little deeper and the teams get better, if we can keep that teamness, that’ll get us through.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
