Losing nearly 80 percent of your scoring from a year ago can be frightful for any basketball team. That is what Grantsville boys basketball is facing heading into the 2009-10 season but coach Shane Heath feels he has a team to overcome that.

“If I had to predict a leading scorer for our team right now I couldn’t because of the balance of our team,” Heath said. “Any given night, someone can step up and be the leader according to match-ups of the other team.”

One thing that coach Heath sees out of his team on and off the court is how close they are.

“You can see that they are close off the court when you see them working together on the court,” Heath said.

That closeness will help a Grantsville team out that isn’t overly blessed with size but does have a number of athletes that can make things difficult for opposing teams.

In fact, Ben Tripp, who is listed as 6-foot-4, will serve as Grantsville’s tallest player but plays much bigger than his size suggests. “We played a few teams over the summer with some big players and (Ben) Tripp played them pretty well,” Heath said.

After handling the ball from the point guard position as a sophomore, Damon Deavila will use that experience to lead the Cowboys again this year and will have an athletic trio of players returning. Eli Hamm, Josh Harrison and Austin Cunliffe all will have opportunities to find open buckets either down low or from the outside.

Even though the Cowboys were young last year and have the majority of their players returning there are also a couple newcomers to the team. Recent move-in Caleb Nesbitt is working well with his new teammates and impressing his coach.

“Caleb (Nesbitt) is a smart basketball player and has a good feel for the game,” Heath said. Grantsville will also have a couple sophomores in Dalen Erickson and Braxton Sparks that will fight for minutes on varsity.

Now with the players in coach Heath’s second year as coach and second year playing in the same system the coach thinks he will see improvement on the four-win season from last year.

“We have been working in the system for over a year now,” Heath said. “We also have to get to the point where losing hurts because if losing doesn’t hurt then you don’t really appreciate winning.”

After missing out on the playoffs a year ago, the Cowboys have the goal to get back to the state tournament. “The pre-season is important for us but we would like to be playing our best basketball once region play rolls around. We just want to compete in every game,” Heath said.

Grantsville’s region does have the reigning state champion Bear River in it but they have lost some players while Morgan and Ben Lomond will be tough returning challenges. Judge and Juan Diego are newcomers to the region while both teams made the playoffs a year ago.

“I am just excited for the season because we have a really good group of kids on and off the court,” Heath said.

The Cowboys kick off their season at Stansbury on Nov. 25 at 7 p.m. Their first home game will be against Cyprus on Dec. 2.

Jake Gordon: jgordon@tooeletranscript.com