‘Never give up’ attitude pays off for Longhorns

Before the season started, Chase County boys’ basketball coach Chris Bartels knew his team would have a tough year ahead of it, despite the move down to Class C2.
    That assessment still rings true as the coach looks back on his team’s 16-9 record for the 2020-21 season.
    “Our schedule was definitely one of, if not the toughest, in Class C2. Our nine losses came from opponents with a 175-49 combined record,” Bartels said.
    Bartels pointed out that the SPVA conference had three teams make the state tournament and five out of the seven played in a district championship game. Plus, five CCS opponents were state tournament teams in their class.
    “Our players knew the schedule was going to be tough from the start, but they never let it get them down, they actually got better because of it. They just kept getting better and it eventually paid off,” Bartels said.
    The Longhorns had a solid group of seniors on which to build.
    “We had five great seniors on the team this year and each one of them played a very meaningful role on the team. We would not have been able to get as far as we did without this group of seniors and we are going to miss them. I have a lot of great memories with those guys,” Bartels said.
    Mason Nordhausen led CCS in scoring with 13.7 points per game.
    Bartels said Nordhausen is one of the best shooters he has coached.
    Nordhausen “has worked very hard at it. When he gets going, it’s really fun to watch,” Bartels said.
    Cedric Maxwell was close behind Nordhausen with a 12.6 points per game average and  led the Longhorns with 6.6 rebounds per game.
    “It was a pleasure to coach Cedric for four years. He had such a positive attitude after his ACL injury and I really think that helped towards his recovery. He worked so hard to get back to playing basketball full speed,” Bartels said.
    Maxwell deserved to have a great senior year, according to Bartels. He believes Maxwell did just that.
    Clay Meeske started throughout the season.
    Bartels said Meeske was a very underrated player because he doesn’t talk much, but the Longhorns are going to really miss him.
    “It was really fun watching Clay improve his game as he got older. He silently worked on his game and by the time he was a junior he had worked his way into a varsity starting role,” Bartels said.
    Brandon Mintling was a great teammate, Bartels said.
    “He showed up to practice everyday and worked his tail off. Brandon was always ready to play whether he got the call or not. He was also the funniest kid on the team,” Bartels added.
    Like Mintling, Jake German was another player who showed up to practice everyday and worked hard.
    “When he went into the game, you knew he was going to play as hard as he could. Watching Jake grow as a basketball player and a person from his freshman year to senior year was a lot of fun,” Bartels said.
    Juniors Keenan Cole, Tysen Lempke and sophomore Kade Anderson each started during the season. Anderson was the only Longhorn to see action in every game this season.
    “Keenan, Tysen and Kade did a great job this year, and they just kept getting better as the season went on. They are all really good defenders and we knew that going into the season, but I am really pleased with how they developed their game on offense,” Bartels said.
    He pointed out that Cole and Anderson both led CCS in scoring at least once this season and Lempke had a couple of games where he was close.
    Qualifying for the state tournament was huge for the Chase County boys’ basketball program on a lot of different levels.

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