The Burrall Blog – Here We Go With Hoops!

12/3/09 – 10:42 PM

On the eve of the new season for Newcastle Dogie and Lady Dogie basketball, it’s safe to say that the expectations are……..well, let’s just call them realistic.

Certainly, those expectations aren’t for Allen Von Eye’s Dogies what they were at this time last season.  This year’s team will mostly be gaining its first significant varsity experience, except for Jeremy Beehler and Taylor Tobar, who won’t be back until after the New Year as he recovers from that serious ankle injury he had during football season.  Still, Coach Von Eye is pleased with his team’s progress, and is particularly upbeat about post player Brice Birkley, who starts right away, despite only a couple of varsity appearances at the end of last season.  His backup is Ryan Jones, and Von Eye says Ryan has also progressed well.

Don’t look for 9 or 10 players to play consistenly this season, as was the case some of last season.  The rotation will probably be only about 7-deep.  There will likely be some mistakes from varsity inexperience early on, but this should be an interesting team to follow.

So should be the Lady Dogies.  They have a new, young and enthusiatic head coach in Tyler Bartlett.  He wants to use everyone he has on varsity every game, because Bartlett wants his team to run and be physical.  Important for this team will be avoiding injuries.  You may recall that Megan Gordon and Marina Podio both missed a lot of time last season, and they will both be counted on heavily.  So will Kaitlyn Livingston, who beat everyone – including the guys – at the 3-point shooting contest at “Meet the Dogies” recently.

The journey for both teams begins this weekend with the 3A East/West Challenge.  The Dogies will be in Cody, with the Lady Dogies in Buffalo.  We’ll bring you the Dogie action from scenic Cody on KASL and here on kaslradio.com.  Check the play-by-play schedule and please tune in on the radio or online.  We don’t quite know what this season will bring, but Mick Bohn and I will have a blast finding out.