Player Profile: Kellan Benck
After coming off a successful cross country season Kellan Benck is ready to start his final basketball season with Duel.
Benck just missed qualifying for the state cross country meet by placing 35th with a time of 24:07.04.
This summer Benck played for the Dakota Niners and improved in several different aspects of his game.
“This summer I played for Dakota Niners,” Benck said. “We had a rough year not winning a lot of games but we were always in close games. We played some tough teams and always hung with them and gave them a run for their money so I’d say our summer season was pretty successful.”
Along with playing for the Niners. Benck spent a lot of time in the weight room and in open gyms to improve himself for the season.
“This summer I spent time getting bigger in the weight room and working on becoming more versatile as a player,” Benck said. “A lot of people have known me to be a shooter and only that my whole life but I’ve added a lot to my game this summer with getting to the rim and being able to hit pull up jumpers consistently.”
Benck describes his game as a player that works hard and leads his team by example.
“I would describe my self as a very high IQ player and I am always working hard and leading my team,” Benck said. “I try to lead by example all the time on the court and off the court. I have a great vision of the court and can always hit the open man, but I am also a very capable scorer.”
The Cardinals also had a team summer league in Watertown that went really well. Benck said top to bottom- middle school through seniors all put in work and got better this summer.
As for the season, Benck hopes the success of the summer team league leads into the school season.
“I have pretty high expectations for myself this year as I have a ton of experience at the varsity level and will need to lead a young group of guys we have coming up,” Benck said. “I think that the group of guys we have all complement each other very well and we will play great together as a team. I expect us to have a good season, competing with every team we play and picking up some decent wins.”
As far as colleges looking at him Benck says Dakota Wesleyan and Dakota State University are the only ones so far.
The Cardinals open the season on December 7 at Castlewood.