Prospect Spotlight: Cole Elrod (2019)
With approximately two-thirds of their season complete, the Spectrum Sting find themselves with an 8-7 record, sitting smack-dab in the middle of the MCAA standings. Their roster only includes two seniors this season, and is largely made up of juniors. One of those juniors has continued to make a name for himself this season, and that player is Cole Elrod.
Through 15 games, Elrod is averaging 18 PPG and 8 RPG, which are improvements over the stellar numbers he put up a year ago as a sophomore, averaging 17 PPG and 7 RPG. He has also improved his free throw shooting this season, lifting his 77% rate from a season ago to 81% this season.
When asked to describe his 6’4” junior forward, head coach Marc Prepeluh says that Cole is a “Multifaceted player that can take guys off the dribble and post up. Cole is the true definition of an inside/outside player.” He also added that he sees the junior becoming more of a vocal leader as this season plays out.
Being a vocal leader is something that Elrod says he has worked to excel at this season, when asked to talk about his strengths as a player he says that they include “Scoring the basketball and working on getting my team involved in the game. I have started to become more of a vocal leader also.”
Elrod and Prepeluh both acknowledged that Cole’s three-point percentage is down a bit this season, but that he is committed to improving that aspect of his game along with others. Elrod says that the pieces of his game that he is focusing hard on improving currently are “Being more consistent with my three-point shooting and getting stronger with the basketball. I can always get better at defense and rebounding.”
The work doesn’t stop for Elrod when the high school season is over, as he was a member of Crossfire last summer. “I played for Crossfire over the summer and we were 34-7. I had a lot of fun playing over this summer with the Crossfire organization. We had a great group of guys who could play together really well as a team.”
Elrod had high praise for the coaching he received over the summer, saying “It was a blast for me and coach Bellefeuille is a great coach who has really helped me develop my game, he also knows how to put a solid team together. We didn’t really have just one all-star guy on our team, but we just played so well together mostly due to coach Bellefeuille’ s coaching.”
His play over the summer and during this season has garnered the interest of a few NSIC and UMAC schools. Elrod says “It’s still early so I want to keep all of my options open. I want to play in college, but I’m not sure what I want to study. I think I would like to stay fairly close for college and play basketball but make sure I find a school that can prepare me well academically for the future.”
As for the rest of this season, Elrod and his teammates are keeping their spirits high, hoping to get hot in the last month. “Coach Prepeluh and our staff do a great job of getting us ready for games and they keep pushing us to get better. Our goal is to get better individually and as a team every day and trust that we will get to where we want to be at the end of the season” says Elrod.
Prepeluh says “I know Cole will motivate and encourage his teammates to be their best so we can hit on our team goals,” adding that “Cole is a very driven person.”
It will be exciting to see where that drive and motivation takes Cole and his teammates the rest of this season and into next year. Wherever the final destination is, it will be a fun journey.