With four starters lost to graduation people may wonder how the Cloquet boys basketball team compete this season. One only has to look at the massive size inside the paint to find the answer.
Cloquet will start a pair of 6-foot-10 interior players with center Chad Calcaterra and forward Ben Schultz.
"[And we've got] a 6-foot-3 kid who can get to the basket, too," mentioned Battaglia of Calcaterra, Schultz and RaRa Jones. "We have two kids who can really shoot the ball and two very hard-nosed kids who will handle the point guard for us."
Peter LaCourse, Dedric Clark, Dennis Conklin and Tim Defoe are all very capable at handling guard duties and should be more than solid this season.
"I think we should be a pretty good team once we have some time to gel," said coach Steve Battaglia. "We'll have to mix line-ups to see what gives us our best one, but I am cautiously optimistic that we'll be tough to beat at tournament time."
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Last year the Jacks lost to eventual Section 7 champion Grand Rapids by one point and they hope to atone for that loss this year by making a run to the title game once again.
