Tall center leads Raiders
Junior just shy of seven feet tall
By Casey Krautkramer
It’s a luxury for a local varsity boys basketball team like Marathon to have a nearly seven-foot center who can easily slam dunk the basketball and block shots.
Grant Warren grew another inch taller in the offseason and he now stands as an intimidating six foot, nine-inch junior for the Red Raiders. He also has a nice touch on his jump shot but his slim frame caused him to get pushed around by defenders last season. Adam Jacobson, now in his 12th season as Marathon head coach, said Warren worked hard in the offseason on becoming stronger and expanding his skill set.
“The future is so bright for Grant,” Jacobson said. “He has excellent athleticism and an excellent skill set. We are expecting Grant to have a major impact on the game at both ends of the floor. He is only scratching the surface on the type of player he will become. Grant loves the game and he works very hard at the game. We are excited to see the tremendous talent he has on the basketball floor.”
Marathon lost four senior starting players from last year’s squad to graduation, including star shooting guard Jaden Koeller who finished his career as third on the school’s all-time points scored list.
“Jaden had an exceptional four-year varsity basketball career,” Jacobson said. “He was one of the best shooters I have seen in a high school gym. No doubt we will have to find a way to fill that production on offense. It was quite a luxury for us knowing that if he got an open look within our offense or stepped to the free throw line, that the basketball was going into the hoop. We will have to adjust things offensively to the current personnel we have and I know our guys are confident they can make the plays needed for us to be successful.”
“Jaden’s hard work and dedication to becoming the best player he could become has permeated through our program and hopefully will show in the development of the players who are trying to fill his production.”
Besides Warren, Marathon’s other top returning players this season are senior guards Drew Love, Daniel LaQua and Mason Seehafer; junior forward Tyler Underwood and junior guard Cooper Hoeksema. Top newcomers to the varsity squad who should receive playing time are senior guard Pierson Hamann; junior forward Payton Lawrence; junior guard Andrew Glennon; sophomore guard Cody Radtke; freshman forward Drew Woelfel and freshman guard True Thurs.
Coach Jacobson spoke about the new players joining Warren in the team’s starting lineup this season.
“Drew Love is entering his third
season on the varsity team and he is stepping very nicely into a starting role for us,” he said. “Tyler Underwood played big minutes off the bench as a sophomore for us, and after battling an early season ankle injury, is getting healthy and filling a starting role for us. Cooper Hoeksema had a couple big time moments for us on the varsity in limited action last year as a sophomore and he is eager to fill a role in the starting lineup.” “Mason Seehafer and Daniel LaQua are two returning seniors who played some varsity minutes last year as juniors who are also working hard to fill a starting role or give us that sixth man spark for us.”
Jacobson’s coaching staff consists of assistants Phil Seubert, Chuck Woelfel, Claude Seubert and Alex Blume. Claude Seubert remains the longtime junior varsity head coach and Blume is the junior varsity 2 head coach.
Last season, Marathon beat Stratford twice during the regular season to win the Marawood South Conference championship. The Red Raiders, however, then lost to the Tigers in the WIAA Division 4 regional title. Coach Jacobson hopes the younger players returning this season learned from the varsity squad’s regional championship defeat last year. “Every season ending loss stings and it provides motivation to our returning players, no matter when that loss occurs,” he said. “Our program wants to compete for a conference championship in the always, very diffi cult, Marawood South. We know that if we can compete in our league then we have a chance to make a deep playoff run in March. The difficult thing with a deep playoff run also is the fact that we have to get through teams in the Marawood South to advance in the playoffs too.”
“Stratford had an excellent team last year. All three games we played against Stratford were battles to the very end and fortunately we were able to come out on top in two of them and win the league title, but unfortunately we came up short in the regional final. That just shows the high quality of teams and individual talent there is in central Wisconsin.”
“Get out to games and cheer on your teams. The small school talent of the teams in our area is some of the best in the whole state, and it will once again be another battle night in and night out in our area this season.”
