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=By Frank Smith
The San Manuel Miners varsity basketball team is ready to hit the hard wood for the 2012-2013 season with second year Head Coach Ryan Sichting at the helm along with Varsity Assistant William Smith, and Junior Varsity/ Varsity Assistant Coach Steve Elmore.
The Miners will look to improve on last year’s overall record 8 – 8 during regular season.
San Manuel lost nine seniors from last year’s team along with four starters but the Miners will return two starting seniors in guardAndres Sierra and forward Andy Monfred.
The top newcomers are junior forward Jordan Peasley, junior guard Alvaro Alvarez, and sophomore guard Andres Moreno.
Coach Sichting said, “Andy Monfred and Andres Sierra are probably the two best basketball players coming back from last year. Those are the only two players with varsity experience. So our biggest weakness is definitely experience. I think we are a much better shooting team than last year. We don’t have much size this year. Andy is really the only true post player at 6’3”.
“The team is very coachable this year and work hard in practices. I don’t know how many games we will win, but they will work hard,” he continued.
San Manuel started the season at the Boyd Baker Tournament last week and took on Immaculate Heart on Tuesday of this week.
The Miners will travel to Canyon Del Oro in Oro Valley today with the JV playing at 5 p.m. with the Varsity squad playing at 6:30 p.m. and then they will host Thatcher this Thursday with the JV playing at 5 p.m. with the varsity squad taking the court at 6:30 p.m.
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