Benny Westcott
Sweet Home High School junior Nathan Aker was named boys basketball Team MVP at the program’s awards banquet at The Commons in Sweet Home High School on March 2.
Aker led the team this season with 235 points in 23 games, scoring 10.2 points per game. He also led the team with 107 rebounds while playing 579 minutes, the most of any Husky. Aker also had 24 assists and 19 steals. The junior was an All League Honorable Mention in the 4A Oregon West Conference.
Aker started every game for the Huskies this season, just like he did his sophomore year. “He did a great job for us,” Head Coach Drew Emmert said. “He’s a great scorer. He just really does everything for us and works hard. He battled through some injuries but didn’t miss a game through it.”
Junior Colin Nicholson was the second Husky named as an All League Honorable Mention. He led the team in blocks with 11. Nicholson scored 124 points on a team-leading 48.1% field goal percentage. He pulled down 79 rebounds, had 16 assists and recorded 17 steals.
“Colin did great for us this year,” Emmert said. “Anyone who watched knows that he was one of the best athletes on the court every night. He’s maybe the most athletic kid that I’ve coached. He’s super coachable and did a great job.”
Junior point guard Vegas Mauer won Defensive Player of the Year. He led the team in charges drawn with seven, and also had 14 steals and five blocks. Assistant Coach Ryan Adams said that Mauer “held some of the best players that we’ve seen in the last couple of years in Philomath and Cascade to probably some of their worst statistical nights that they had all year.”
He added that “Oftentimes this year we ran a triangle and two, where we tried to keep guys on their best players all the time and kind of take them out of the game, which is a really hard task to do when you’re playing teams that are really stinking good and have some guys that are going to play at the next level, like our league is full of. But this kid always gave it his best effort and was tenacious. He didn’t ask to come out and didn’t shy away from the challenge ever.”
The Free Throw Award for highest free throw percentage went to senior Dylan Luttmer. He shot 73.1% from the charity stripe, going 19-26.
The Sportsmanship Award went to senior Riley Korn. Adams said
“In games I don’t think I’ve ever seen him complain about anything. You can tell when he’s frustrated, which is fine, but he never takes that out on officials or teammates. He just continues to show up and play basketball the best that he can.”
Sophomore Josh Aker won the Hustle Award. “Josh did awesome for us this year,” Emmert said. “At this time last year Josh was coming up here with the JV2 team, and we weren’t sure where he’d be at this year.
But he worked so hard in the offseason and came into the season ready to rock. And then as the season went on, he had a huge role on varsity. As players got hurt or missed games, he was so consistent all the way through, and by the end he was a starter for us and did a great job.”
As a team, the Huskies finished the season 1-22, failing to get a win in the loaded 4A Oregon West Conference.
“Obviously wins and losses weren’t ideal,” Emmert said. “The last couple years have been tough as far as that goes. We knew when we lost 11 seniors two years ago after the COVID year that it was going to be tough.”
But the coach said “I am so proud of the way we battled every day. It is a lot harder to get through a season and to stay positive through a season when you have a lot of things that don’t go your way.”
Looking back, he said that “In preseason we easily could have won four of those games, and then we’d be feeling a lot better about where we’re at.”
He noted that the team lost three games in overtime and another by a buzzer beater at the end of regulation. “And those are all things where I could have done one or two things different, and we win those games,” he remarked. “So those are things I’ll think about.”
Emmert noted that four of the top six teams in the state are in Sweet Home’s league, and the Huskies have to play each of them twice.
“You have to be one of those elite teams to compete with them night in and night out,” he said. “That just made it tough as far as league record goes.”
But he emphasized that the Huskies took North Marion, ranked No. 7 in the state, down to the wire just two weeks prior, ultimately losing to the other Huskies 62-52 on Feb. 16.
“I’m really proud of how it went,” he said of the season. “Every day we came in, whether it was after a tough loss or a good game, and these guys were up. I’d come in down once in a while disappointed about the night before, and then these guys were ready to rock. They’d pick me up sometimes. That was awesome to see.”
Looking ahead, the coach said “There’s some things that are really exciting about our program.
“There’s a lot of things to look forward to. I’ve never returned as many players as I’m going to return next year on varsity.
“And I’ve never had as many three year letter winners as we’re going to have next year. There were a lot of good things that happened in our JV and JV2 games – a lot of good players that will put in a lot of work. And that’s what we have to do to get back to our standard, which I believe we will do next year.”
He noted that the school district’s eighth-grade class has 34 boys coming to the high school to play basketball next year, and emphasized the importance of gym time in the offseason.
“It is super important that we are in the gym a bunch,” he said. “A lot of the teams, especially in our league, are playing year round in different leagues. I love that we have a lot of two- and three-sport athletes, but we have to take advantage of the time that we have in the gym.”
Korn was the sole third year letter winner for the Huskies.
Second-year letter winners were Luttmer, Mauer, Nathan Aker, Ethan Delibertis, John Holly, Will Jewell and Nicholson.
First-year letter winners were Connor Pace, Josh Aker, Kason Forum, Taidon Burger, and Max Klumph.