The following article is sponsored on behalf of the Souderton boys’ basketball team by Millennium Administrators. Souderton’s game against North Penn on Tuesday night also will be sponsored by Millennium Administrators in Memory of Mark Picard. To visit Millennium’s web site, please click on the following link: http://www.millennium-tpa.com/Html/administrators.html
By Mary Jane Souder
Evan Slone leads by example.
Anyone looking for a situation that underscores the leadership Souderton’s senior tri-captain has provided this season need look no further than last Friday night’s game against Central Bucks South.
“With two minutes left in warm-ups, my stomach started killing me,” Slone said. “It felt awful, but it was my third to last game, and we needed to win, so it would have taken more than just a bad stomach to not play.”
Slone’s stomach issues were just the beginning of a tough night.
“He has a collision in the middle of the game that makes him forget about his stomach because his knee explodes,” coach Pete Chimera said. “It looks like a peach.
“Literally, I’m kneeling down in the huddle and looking at his knee, and I’m like, ‘Evan, are you okay?’ He goes, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ He’s just a warrior.”
Slone led the Indians with 17 points in a 45-42 win over the Titans. As for his knee, Slone insists it’s just fine.
“It’s just a bone bruise,” he said. “It’s healing up.”
Slone and fellow senior captains Tim Markow and Ben Wonderling have been – in Chimera’s own words – “tremendous leaders” of this year’s squad.
“All three of these guys just lead by example,” the Indians’ coach said. “Evan leads by example sometimes too much because guys stand around and watch him and say, ‘Oh wow, look at Evan.’
“Tim doesn’t say much, but when he says things, kids listen. After our loss to CB West, which was our third in a row, Tim was one of the guys who spoke. He and Ben and Evan spoke up. They didn’t say a lot, but what they said – kids listen and they get it.”
All four seniors – the team’s three captains and reserve Steve Sosnowicz – are part of the first graduating class that did not have a freshman team.
“They didn’t play much their freshman year,” Chimera said. “Their development has been unique. They’ve had to become real team players and not focused so much individually on how much playing time am I getting.
“Ben and Steve didn’t play much over the first three years of their careers. Now they’re in a position where they have to grow up pretty quickly, and they have. They’ve matured so much. Outside of the basketball aspect of it, they’ve just developed into really good kids who are going to be really successful in the future, and that’s nice to see.”
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Slone is the undisputed go-to player of this year’s Indian squad. Not bad for a player who says he almost didn’t make the cut as a ninth grader.
“It’s kind of funny – I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make the team,” he said. “I was on the bubble.
“Once I made the team, I was just really thankful to be a part of it. I knew I wasn’t going to play a lot, but I would get some experience at practice.”
Slone says he saw action in just two games and scored only two points that year. Not exactly the kind of numbers one might expect from an athlete who had been the go-to player on his past squads.
“It was kind of tough, but absolutely, I benefitted,” he said. “I got to play with juniors that were really good. Playing against them every day made me so much better.
“The jayvee coach at the time, Mike Ahern, taught me so much. I really developed that year.”
The following year, Slone earned a spot on the varsity, and he’s been a two-year starter. Putting up points isn’t all that he brings to the court.
“Against CB West, a game we didn’t play well, Evan took five charges in one game,” Chimera said. “And he’s 6-6, so it’s not like he can’t block shots – he can block shots.
“He just gets in the right spot, and he gives up his body. Everybody looks at him, and they say, ‘He’s so skinny. Make him eat,’ but he’s so tough and strong.”
Markow, like Slone, also had to work his way up the ranks.
“Just knowing there was no freshman team – there was a lot more pressure because the idea was there that you weren’t going to be on a basketball team that year,” he said. “Once we made the team – as freshmen, we were on the bottom, and it was hard to get playing time, even sometimes at practice, so it was a different mentality than before because you knew you had to work really hard for that one or two minutes you could possibly get.
“I remember the beginning of the season – probably the first half – I don’t think I saw the court once. Then I started playing a little bit better at practice. There were a couple of games where I went in and made a three and went right back out after 30 seconds maybe. Of course, there were the games where it’s a blowout, so you’d go in the last three minutes and play the other freshmen and sophomores that don’t play on the other team.”
“It was definitely a humbling experience,” Wonderling added. “But I was very blessed and thankful to make the team because it was tough because they only took five freshmen whereas the freshman team would normally take 10-12.
“It was frustrating at times, practicing and working hard and not getting a chance to play as much as we wanted to. We got playing time here and there, but as freshmen, it’s tough because you’re not as developed, and middle school basketball is much different from jayvee basketball.”
Although they were forced to pay their dues, to a player, they believe they benefitted from that experience.
“We were playing against great competition at practice, and it made us better,” Wonderling said. “Even though it was rather quick jumping into the high school basketball jayvee-varsity lifestyle, it was helpful because we were able to get acquainted quickly and get a handle of how it works as a freshman.”
“On a freshman team, we would have been playing against ourselves,” Markow added. “Going right into high school and playing against the sophomores and juniors that had experience – you definitely had to step your game up a bit and you definitely learned.”
All three captains have been three-year varsity players. Markow – like Slone – is a two-year starter.
“He just does whatever we need him to do,” Chimera said. “Last year when (Steve) Shaffer, our starting point guard got injured, he was our starting three and we moved him to starting point guard because we wanted to keep Carter Knights off the ball. From the middle of the season, he just became our point.”
This year, Markow sees action at both the one and three, depending who’s in the game or what the Indians need. He scored 16 points in Friday’s win over CB South.
“He scored eight of our last 10 and had two key steals at the end of the game,” Chimera said. “He’s very quiet, he doesn’t say a lot, but he always gets the job done.
“He just fights through adversity and knows because he’s not your prototypical point guard that he’s going to be pressured. He’s pressured all the time, and he handles it, and he shines in it.”
Wonderling is the vocal leader of the Indians.
“He is just a comfort to be there as a coach because you know he listens to what you have to say, and he’s going to do whatever you tell him to do, whether it’s cover an opposing player all over the court or get a three when we need a three,” Chimera said. “What matters to him is - do we win.
“If I take him out and put somebody else in who can do some different things, he doesn’t care. He’s the first one off the bench to greet a kid when he is out of the game. For three years in a row, he’s been the first one off the bench. It’s a great constant I’ve had.”
The reality that they are coming down the home stretch of their high school careers is starting to hit home.
“The last two-three weeks, we’re been – ‘Wow, this is our senior year. This could be the last of our basketball careers,’” Markow said. “It’s definitely in the back of my mind, but I’m just trying to play these games like I normally do.”
“You say all the time – time flies,” Wonderling added. “Looking at the freshmen now and saying, ‘Wow, that was us four years ago, and this is our last year,’ it’s pretty surreal in that sense.
“It’s been an up and down season. There have been times we wished for different outcomes, but coach is always preaching that sports and basketball – it’s much more than winning games. It’s about teaching us about life and becoming men. I think the adversity we’ve faced this year kind of helped that. We’ve tried our best – when we’ve been in situations with our backs against the wall – to not give up and make the best out of the situation.”
“I’m slowly realizing it isn’t going to last forever, and it’s tough,” Slone said. “I have two regular season games left. It came so fast.”
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