Sports

Three freshman join Engel to lead Jacks

By Tyler Ohmann

11/12/2013

Editors note: In conjunction with Cory Fehringer, head coach of the Dakota College at Bottineau men’s basketball team, the Bottineau Courant has decided to do an early-season preview series of the players on the Jacks squad this season. Many of them are new faces. This week’s article focuses on point guards.

The point guard position is a vital role on the court, and it might be even more so for the Dakota College at Bottineau men’s basketball team, mainly because of who is at the helm.

See, DCB’s head coach is Cory Fehringer, who played four years of college basketball at the point guard position, which he admits means he is much harder on his young point guards.

“If you’re on the outside looking in, you do not understand the pressure I put on these point guards to make this team go,” Fehringer said.

Fehringer, who played his pointguard days at both Northeastern Jr. College at Hastings College, has four strong point guards on this year’s squad that he thinks all bring something to the table.

There is Billy Engel, the leader; Xavier Cruz, the scorer; Patrick Robinson, the spark plug and Travis Frye, the versatile one.
However, Fehringer expects them to all provide the same thing to their teammates.

“The biggest aspect of being a point guard in the Lumberjack program is the accountability that you have to take within all areas of our program,” Fehringer said. “From study table to morning workouts, to community leadership to organizing people to be on time, the point guards constantly have to be responsible for the group.”

Fehringer believes that the point guards need to be an extension of what he brings as a coach, since he cannot be out there himself.

“They are an extension of the coach on the floor, and they have to see the game from a different lens,” Fehringer said. “They need to see the game through my eyes, and what I envision on the court.”
“With that comes a lot of blame as well,” Fehringer added.

One thing is for sure, being a point guard for the Jacks does not come easy.

“They get a lot of freedom to make decisions, but they are also held to a different level of expectations,” Fehringer said. “I think we put them in a lot of heat, and one thing we tell them is, ‘don’t ask for a lighter load, work for stronger shoulders.’”

“With that being said, if they don’t want that those expectations, those standards, that higher level of responsibility with the team, they’re not going to survive being a point guard in our program,” Fehringer added.

This season’s point guards are a diverse group, and Fehringer believes they will help lead the team to success.

Billy Engel

Engel is a sophomore from Cooperstown, N.D. and is the lone player from North Dakota and the lone player with game experience under Fehringer.

As a freshman Engel started 26 of the Jacks’ 30 games at point guard last season. He averaged 9.8 points, four assists and 3.6 rebounds per game.

Fehringer believes that he is a great asset and returner to the Jacks squad.

“We couldn’t ask for a better player to be returning as our point guard than a player like Billy Engel,” Fehringer said. “Especially in my second year in the program.”

The coach had many good things to say about the man, who will be asked to run the half court offense, and is very good at it too. Fehringer said it didn’t come without some hard work.

“He had an exceptional summer, and put in a lot of time, a lot of work and continues to do so throughout the year,” Fehringer said. “He understands that for him to have success at the point guard position, he needs to spend more time and hours than anybody else in the gym and watching film.”

In the Jacks’ opening weekend at the Kevin Thom Classic, Engel averaged 9.5 points, three assists and three rebounds in 47 minutes of play.

Xavier Cruz

Cruz is a freshman from Miami, Fla., who sat out from playing last season after graduating from high school in 2012. He averaged 20-plus points in both his junior and senior seasons in high school, and was all-conference in both of them as well.

The Jacks look for him to be a score-first point guard.

“I still have no idea why he wasn’t in college coming out of high school,” Fehringer said. “He brings a different punch to the package, because of his ability to score. He offsets Billy Engel’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“Xavier is going to push the ball and score, and if you give him an open window, he’s going to make you pay,” Fehringer added.

In the opening weekend at the Classic, Cruz averaged 15 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists in the two games, while playing 35 minutes.

Patrick Robinson

From Brampton, Ontario, Robinson is the lone Canuck on the Jacks squad this season. Fehringer noted his ability to score, catch and shoot threes and attack the rim in transition as strengths to his game.

DCB wasn’t his first choice, but Fehringer believes that it will turn out to be a great one.

“He has a long ways to go as far as managing the game, but he is an extremely talented athlete,” Fehringer said. “He has a unique ability to score the basketball in a lot of ways.”

He played 26 minutes in the Jacks’ opening two games and scored 10 points and dished out five assists. He also was 2-for-3 from three-point range and had a big dunk in transition.

Travis Frye

The latest addition to the Jacks’ team, Frye hails from Myrtle Beach, S.C. Frye had other options of places to go, but Fehringer believes he chose DCB because he will be challenged and it was a place that would allow him to play and grow.

Frye’s versatility is something that Fehringer values, but he knows that Frye also needs to learn a few things too.

“I think he’s done a great job of coming in and accepting different roles within the offense,” Fehringer said. “Travis is just a basketball player, he can shoot it, he can pass it, he can drive it, and for us its going to be a matter of when do we need him to do that.”

“He’s going to have to understand that balance through my eyes the same way that I challenge our other point guards who see the game through my eyes, which isn’t how we coach the other positions,” Fehringer added.

Frye played strongly in the Classic as he scored 34 points in 33 minutes of playing time, including 28 points in their 50-point opening game win over Canadian Mennonite Unviersity. He also averaged 5.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in the two games.

Fehringer said that the point guard position is an extremely important position on the court, and he feels he has some great pieces to run the team this season.

“It is a position that extremely value, because it is a position that I played through four years of college,” Fehringer said. “It is a position similar to the center on a line, because sometimes they can get lost in the shuffle, because we don’t ask them to score a lot of points.”

“We don’t ask them to be the hero, we ask them to make the other four players around them the best four players on the floor,” Fehringer added.

Next week look for the preview of the mighty wings from the 2013-14 Jacks squad.