Experienced, balanced Generals looking to stay atop the MVL

THORNVILLE, Ohio- The last two seasons have been memorable ones for the Sheridan boys basketball team.

A trip to the state Final Four in 2019. Its first MVL championship in nine years in 2020. All make for high expectations in Thornville this season, as this years team is full of talent.

“It’s not a team where we have to rely on one person,” Sheridan coach Doug Fisher said. “Landen Russell was our leading scorer last season with like 14 points a game. We have three other kids that are back, that averaged close to double figures, so it’s not a one man show by any means.”

“No team will be able to focus on one player,” Sheridan senior guard Landen Russell said. “I think we can all do different things but we’re similar. We’re all pretty lengthy (and) we can all shoot it.”

Experience certainly won’t be lacking this season for the Generals. With six seniors on this years team, five of them have played varsity for multiple years now and four were starters last season.

Fisher said, “A couple years ago we had seven seniors but three or four of those kids weren’t full time players. These guys, five of them have all got quality varsity time and game experience.”

“We work really good together,” Sheridan senior guard Logan Ranft said. “I think we’re really solid and we know what someone else is going to do before they do it. That’s the good chemistry I think the team needs. Since eight grade this team has all been together.”

The senior class features, Russell, Ranft, Ethan Malone, Shay Taylor, Nate Johnson and Josh O’Ryan.

What’s even scarier, is that the talent doesn’t stop there.

Ranft said, “The underclassmen are pretty solid. There’s not that many juniors, there’s I think three of four juniors, and the sophomore class is really talented.”

“Reed Coconis, who’s just a sophomore, will start at the point guard for us. So we may mix it up with some of the other guys,” Fisher said.

“Kaelan Pulliam is a junior, he was our leading scorer on the JV team last year and he’s a really nice shooter. This is his (Pulliam) first year on varsity so he’s still working his way in but he’s definitely in the rotation.”

“Reed (Coconis), he really worked on his game over quarantine,” Russell said. “He got his handle better so he’ll be able to help us with bringing the ball up the court. And Kaelan (Pulliam), he really put in some shots and he got his jumper looking pretty good.”

Fisher enters his sixth season with the program on Friday (12/4) at Coshocton.