SPRING VALLEY — With a roster of two seniors, three juniors, six sophomores and three freshmen, Spring Valley boys basketball is operating with essentially zero returning varsity production from a year ago. This has not stopped the hardworking bunch from remaining competitive, moving to 2-2 on the year after a 62-51 win over Cornell.

“One of our goals throughout the course of the season is just to try to have continued growth because we have such a young team, an inexperienced team,” Head Coach Rob Bosshart said. “We’ve seen that in every game so far in one aspect or another.”

Losing 45-25 in the season-opener against Alma/Pepin, the shooting was not there, and the offense was not running smoothly. Instead of becoming discouraged from many of their varsity debuts, they put their heads down and got to work.

“The kids are getting a little more comfortable with the pace of the game. Having so much inexperience, playing in a varsity game was just so much faster and a little more physical than what they had been used to,” Bosshart said. “The kids have adapted really well and are doing a great job of learning how to control tempo.”

One player that has settled nicely into the new role is sophomore Tyler Traynor. Losing one of the top players in school history, Cade Stasiek, to graduation, Traynor has taken the wheel as the new lead guard.

“He’s done a really good job of becoming our lead guard… that was a big hole for him to try and fill,” Bosshart said. “We certainly aren’t looking for him to be another Cade. We just want him to be the best version of Tyler, but that is just a lot of responsibility, especially for a sophomore. Sometimes I forget just how young some of these kids are, and the demands that we put on our lead guard.”

Traynor leads the team in points per game with 11.0, is second in rebounds at 5.8 and leads in assists at 2.2. He has run the fastbreak well, especially in the win over Cornell. As the lead guard, Bosshart said he is responsible for guarding a top player, dictating the tempo of the game and organizing the offense. While it is a lot to put on the young student-athlete, he has risen to the challenge.

The Cardinals also have four players standing at six-foot-four or six-foot-five. After posts Masyn Wolf and Caleb Bartko graduated in the spring, it was nice to have an abundance of height for the transition period.

“We have a lot of length,” Bosshart said. “We’ve rebounded better the last few games, because kids have learned to use their length and their size a little bit better.”

Bosshart said both games and practice will continue to ramp up when they return from the holiday break, so they will have to maintain the mental and physical endurance for what Bosshart calls “phase two” of the season.