17U Run Through: Comets DLR
Several Minnesota programs have multiple good teams at various levels and that includes the Minnesota Comets and their Comets DLR squad who we look at today.
The Roster. The Minnesota Comets DLR (which is short for Coach Steve De Los Reyes who just so happens to be the best tattoo artist in Minnesota so look him up at Ink Kings!!) is an 11 man team squad of several quality St. Cloud area, Northern Minnesota, and a few metro players.
The Guards. Michael Gravelle is a St. Cloud Apollo sophomore who stands 5-foot-8 and scored ten points a game along with four assists. A young guard who gets into the paint commonly. Gravelle will have another excellent ball handler to play with in James Flicek, a 5-foot-9 guard with a lot of juice to his game. Flicek, who is from Princeton, helped the Tigers to a 20 plus win season scoring 15 points a game with eight assists a night.
Need a shooter? DLR has shooters. Dylan Fruth, a 5-foot-11 guard from Elk River, made 70 treys in 26 games this year scoring just under 14 points a contest. It was a down year for Apollo but the emergence of Fruth was a bright spot. Then you have veteran guard Jenson Beachy who already has four varsity seasons under his belt. The state of Minnesota had two teams that lost only one game this year and Beachy led one of them (Perham). Jenson gave Perham 16.7 pints per game with 5.3 assists a contest.
Wings. Looking for the top prospect on this team? One of them will be 6-foot-5 Perham wing Josh Jeziorski. The 6-foot-4 Jeziorski scored 15.6 points a contest this year while leading the team in rebounding (9 a game). Josh is agile and can play two or three different spots because of his skills, agility, and having to play closer to the rim on a small school team.
Park of Cottage Grove explosive leaper Domenik Block scored 17.5 points per game this year stepping into a main scorer’s role when others on the team were hurt. Block handled the role with more consistency and skill than expected. Six-foot-3 wing Thomas Gieske is going to play a nice role for this team. He was the main Sartell option and gave his team 17.3 points and 6.7 rebounds a game. Now with others around him Gieske will know what it’s like to take shots with less traffic around him.
Frontcourt. Six-foot-5 Jake Rusch of Lakeville North plays on a team with a lot of front court talent so he was on the junior varsity this year and had a good showing. As he works to jump into some of those Tyler Lewko minutes as well as reserve big minutes he will play with the Comets DLR squad.
Six-foot-5 power forward Will Tinjum of Chisago Lakes is coming off of a 14.6 points per game season. It was a tough year for Chisago but Tinjum was a bright spot. The immovable piece of the team is 6-foot-7 center Jon Stimmler of Princeton. Stimmler led Princeton in scoring at 17 points a game and could not be moved around the basket. He will be one of the better low post options in 17u this year.
Finally 6-foot-7 Connor Bich of Hermantown led his team to state with his team highs of seven rebounds a game and over two blocks a game. Bich, who is 6-foot-7, also scored 14-15 points per game.