Sports in The Dominion Post

This article appeared in the Dominion Post Newspaper on June 17, 2004.
Yester promising more pester from MHS hoops team

TODD MURRAY

Tom Yester has been coaching high school sports long enough to understand he can't afford to dwell on the past.

Yester's Morgantown High boys' basketball team has been a dominant force in the North Central Athletic Conference the past two seasons. The Mohigans were 44-6 overall and made two trips to the state tournament.

About the only thing those two MHS teams didn't win was the Class AAA state title.

While the Mohigans suffered some heavy graduation losses from last year's 23-2 team -- 6-foot-7 star Kameron Law's name immediately springs to mind -- Yester is already looking ahead to the 2005 season with his 23rd MHS team with great optimism.

Yester and his varsity players are practicing an hour a day, four days a week during the three-week summer workout period. They are traveling to Columbus, Ohio, this weekend to play and will participate in WVU basketball coach John Beilein's team camp next weekend.

When Yester looks out on the court these days, he sees a team that is smaller than the ones he became accustomed to coaching the past two years, but he's also noticed this team will be able to do some things those teams couldn't.

"It's going to be a little bit different," Yester said Wednesday morning, before heading off to practice with his MHS girls' soccer team. "We're going to run a little bit more, probably press a little bit more. That's another thing we're going to start w orking on: how we want to do some pressure defense with this group."

The Mohigans are an athletic bunch, no question about it. The addition of former Robert C. Byrd star Migel Lockett, who recently moved to Morgantown with his mother, certainly helps out in that department.

Quinn Law, Kameron's younger brother, moves up to the varsity this season and provides the Mohigans with an athletic 6-foot-4 presence around the basket.

"He's probably our most athletic kid at his height," Yester said.

Add returnees Chris Carey, Marlan Robinson and Dusty Kerns to the mix, and the Mohigans will be probably be the least likely team in the state to walk the ball up the floor next season.

"With Migel, Chris Carey, Dusty, Marlan and those guys, we ought to be able to go out and chase the ball a little bit and get it up and down," Yester said.

"We would hope we could do that to offset our (lack of) height. We're not going to be tiny because Chris is 6-4, Marlan's about 6-4 and Quinn's about 6-4. But compared to 6-7, 6-6 and 6-6, that's a lot smaller. We'll do a couple of things different becau se of that."

The Mohigans have already been given the Kameron Law seal of approval. Law, who will head off to West Virginia State in August, has been working out with the players this week.

"This is going to be a very good team," he said. "They've got two starters, Chris Carey and Dusty Kerns, coming back and one all-stater from another team, Migel Lockett. You've got another contributor who played some significant minutes, Marlan Robinson, and a few others like Justin Hall and John Oliver. You've got a few football players who are going to come in and bang for them.

"There's a lot of things that are going to come together and make this team one of the better teams in Morgantown High history. I don't know if they're going to be better than us, but I definitely think they're going to be a very good team. We were big a nd very tall. They're going to be a little bit smaller and they're going to try and pressure a lot more and get up and run down the court. I wish them the best of luck."

TODDMURRAY is a sports reporter for The Dominion Post. You can reach him at tmurray@dominionpost.com