The winner of the high school boys basketball team’s Most Valuable Player Award is senior Jake Swanson.
He received the award during the team’s annual awards dessert on March 12.
Nate Virtue was named Defensive Player of the Year. Zach Luttmer earned the Hustle Award.
Aiden Tyler won the free throw award at 74.7 percent, and Jasper Korn won the Felix Wilkerson Sportsmanship Award.
Austen Miller and Owen Towry were the Junior Varsity Players of the Year.
“Jake was a three-year starter,” said Coach Drew Emmert of the MVP. He led the team in points, 9.6 per game; rebounds, 5.6 per game; and field goal shooting, 48.5 percent. “He did it all. He was a great leader for us.”
The awards ceremony capped off an unusual season where the Huskies finished last in the league and still earned a play-in berth to kick off the post-season. They ended the year losing to Newport, an Oregon West Conference rival.
Every team in the Oregon West won a play-in berth, and in the pre-season, all seven teams amassed winning records.
“We started out really well,” Emmert said. The Huskies were 11-2 going into league play. Along the way, they won a tournament where all the teams they beat went on to build a combined record of 59-12.
“Our league was tough,” Emmert said, but three or four games were close, and two were within a free throw. The Huskies didn’t lose to any team that didn’t go to a play-in game.
“It was disappointing how we finished in league,” Emmert said, but the team won more games than it has in the past eight years and the team’s first winning record since 2010-11.
Emmert said this also is his first year with seniors he coached as freshmen, and this year was the best finish so far for all of them.
“Every year, we’ve gotten better,” Emmert said.
The team graduates three seniors, Swanson, Virtue and Colton Smith. It will return seven players, including two starters and three to four who had some starts this year.
“I’m excited for next year,” Emmert said. “We should be pretty tough next year.”
Emmert presented first-year letters to sophomores Owen Towry, Brayden Keessee, Cade Gaskey, Aiden Tyler and Hunter Coulter.
Juniors Jasper Korn and Zach Luttmer earned their second letters in basketball.
Third-year letters went to juniors Zach Zanona and Casey Tow and seniors Nate Virtue, Colton Smith and Jake Swanson.
Coming up, the team will host a basketball camp for second through eighth graders in the beginning of the summer, Emmert said. Details and fliers will be out soon.