After winning back-to-back WIAA Division 1 State Championships,
the Stevens Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) boys basketball team has a
new look this season.

The Panthers lost four starters, including First Team
All-State point guard Trev Anderson and First Team All-State forward Sam
Hauser, from last year’s team that finished 28-0 overall and was ranked among
the Top 10 teams in the nation.

With First Team All-State 6-8 junior forward Joey Hauser out
due to an injury and five new starters in its lineup, top-ranked SPASH opened
this season with three wins in a row, and then held off seventh-ranked De Pere (1-1)
down the stretch for a 72-63 victory at the SPASH Fieldhouse Tuesday, Dec. 6,
to improve to 4-0 this season.

“I’m very, very pleased with where we’re at, considering we
lost two Division 1 players that were Mr. Basketball last year, and then the
guy we think we’re going to build the thing around isn’t playing,” said SPASH
boys basketball head coach Scott Anderson. “And so starting from scratch pretty
much with a young, inexperienced team, I’m just very, very pleased with where
we’re at right now.

“In the last month they have made great strides and are
playing good team basketball,” he said. “And as long as we continue to do that
and continue to come to work every day in practice to get better, good things
will hopefully continue to happen.”

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