Easton, like Freedom, Liberty and CCHS, should be LVC contenders again next season

FROM KEITH GROLLER

The James Middleton mess aside, Easton coach Jim Hutnik had reason to feel pretty good late Saturday afternoon, even though Easton just had its season come to an end with a loss to a much quicker Lower Merion team at Reading's Geigle Complex.

Easton will graduate some pretty good kids in Ryan Walsh, Noel Hightower, Chris Jackson and Lincoln Holley, but will have back a premier player in DeVante Queen and other quality guards such as Francisco Batista and Ezra Gaines.

There's also a lot of hope for sophomore center Eric Oakley.

Let's face it, Hutnik is a quality coach and will always have good seasons no matter who's coming back and there is some talent returning.

"Hopefully, this run shows to the kids who are coming back that if you work hard, you're going to get a lot accomplished," Hutnik said. "We lose three three-fifths of our starting lineup and our top two off the bench, but we had a JV team with a lot of talent. So, hopefully, we'll be re-loading, rather than rebuilding."

As was the case this year, the LVC East with Freedom, Liberty and Easton all bunched together will be very competitive next season. Those three, along with Central Catholic, would figure to be the top LVC contenders entering the spring and summer.

Hutnik, who like a lot of people probably felt betrayed by what transpired with Middleton, gave limited, on-the-record comments about the trouble-prone athlete him after the game.

"I didn't even mention it with the kids," he said. "You can't make excuses. Once you get to the opening tip, you try to forget about it. We missed his presence out there. He could have helped us, but our kids played as hard as they could. This [run] is something they'll remember for a long time."

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