“I don’t like Groves, but I hate Brother Rice.” That’s how senior forward Matt Wilkinson feels about his cross-town rival, he can’t stand them.
“I’ve been counting down the days to this game,” said Wilkinson. “This is our first real test.”With another season of fall sports that has come and gone and with the weather getting colder it’s time for basketball on the hardwood.
And early season basketball means only one thing; the annual mid-December showdown with Brother Rice.
The intensity of the rivalry with Rice has increased over the last few years, and the players have taken notice to it.
Senior captain Spencer Eick is heading into his fourth game against Rice and would love to finish off his senior year with a win against their cross town rival.
“The rivalry between us and rice is huge to me,” said Eick. “It’s the game we look forward to every year.”
The Maples are currently 1-2 and have their early season games have been highlighted by their home opener against Groves, in which they routed the falcons 59-36, outscoring them 21-2 in the fourth quarter.
The Maples return eight players from last year’s team that finished 7-14, including Eick, senior forward Sterling Johnson, and junior guard Brandon Yousif.
This year’s roster also includes 6’5 junior guard/forward Paris Bass who moved up from junior varsity to varsity during last season and proved to be productive in the first few games of the Maples young season.
Senior forward Chris Dasbach returns back to the hardwood after not playing last season. Dasbach was a key player on the junior varsity as a sophomore and his ability to score in the paint will be helpful to a team that lacks a dominant scorer.
Tonight’s game versus rice has been the most talked about sporting event ever since the fall sports came to an end, and the fans hatred towards Brother Rice will provide for an electric atmosphere.
“Not only is this game important to us, but we know how important it is to our fans,” said Johnson. “We are going to give it everything we got, and the student section is going to give us an advantage because we all know how rowdy they get.”
The Warriors are lead by Head Coach Ed Shaffer, who is currently in his eighth year as a coach at Brother Rice.
“I haven’t seen any tape on Seaholm yet this year, but I’ll bet Coach Andrades is going through the same things we are this year.” Shaffer said. “Like us, he lost a lot of seniors from last year’s team and is probably trying to figure out who can step up. We are aware of Paris Bass and some of the other good, young talent coming up.”
Shaffer is aware of the intensity that this game usually entails, and hopes that it strengthens his team for games down the stretch.
“I anticipate that this will be a typical Seaholm- Rice game: hard-fought and intense.” Shaffer said. We love to play this game because it gets us ready for the kind of atmospheres we’ll see in our league later in the season.”
Brother Rice is also at a disadvantage because several of their players were members of the state championship football team, and missed critical practice time.
“We are young and inexperienced, so we’ll have to stay patient and learn as we go.” Shaffer said. “We’re working hard right now, but we’ve really only had two good weeks because we had so many guys playing football until Thanksgiving.”
Although Groves is Seaholm’s main rival, the general dislike that most students have towards Brother Rice translates to making them the most hated opponent in many different sports.
Many speculate that the dislike towards Brother Rice is due to their repeated success in athletics, something that makes Seaholm students envy what they have accomplished, therefore making them want to beat Rice more badly.
“It is a different type of atmosphere than games against Groves because we don’t get to than games against Groves because we don’t get to play rice that much,” Wilkinson said. “We play Groves in every single sport and we usually tend to beat them most of the time. Against rice, we are usually the underdog creating a more extreme atmosphere.”
The rivalry has seemed to rise to a new level over the last couple years, mainly due to the way that the class of 2012 feels towards their cross town counterpart.
Timmy Christensen, now a senior at Seaholm, is one of the leaders of the student section and has found himself at the center of the rivalry.
Christensen believes that the intensity surrounding this rivalry is due to the amount of passion that both schools have.
“In both classes at brother rice and at Seaholm there are a lot of outgoing personalities,” Christensen said. “There is also a lot of pride within both classes. School pride is something very commonat brother rice. I think that this is the first time that rice has been matched. The class of 2012 is very proud of being a part of Seaholm and I think that that has put a lot into the rivalry.”
Christensen believes that this is on a different level from the Groves rivalry.
“We get along pretty well with Groves,” Christensen said. “I think that there may be something to prove against rice. Maybe it’s the fact that we are a public school and they are a private, that’s always a conflict.”
With the intensity of the rivalry always lingering in the back of players minds, it makes this upcoming game one of the biggest regular season matchups that the Maples will have this season.
“The game being a cross town rivalry will make it a hectic atmosphere,” senior guard Jake Plotnik said. “All we can hope for us to play our best and hopefully that results in the ‘W’.”
The game tips-off tonight at 7:00 following the freshmen and junior varsity games (both against Brother Rice as well) at Seaholm.
