Nance gone, but Revere basketball team doesn’t miss a beat

by Sheldon Ocker

Certainly, the Revere High School basketball team would love to have Pete Nance (now a freshman forward at Northwestern University) on its roster for a fifth season.

But that’s not how it works. Graduation takes players away after four years, and teams move on. In the case of the Minutemen, their trajectory has continued on an upward plane. With one conference game yet to play, against Tallmadge, Revere already has clinched the outright championship of the Suburban League’s American Division.

As the No. 1 seed in the Division II sectional tournament, the Minutemen will get a first-round bye. Their first opponent will be the winner of the contest between Streetsboro and Orange. A win in that game will propel Revere into the district tournament at Stow.

Last season, the Minutemen tied for the American Division title with Highland and archrival Copley and won a district championship for the first time in school history. But that’s when the 6-foot-10 Nance dominated the Suburban League. Three recruiting services rated him among the top 85 players in the nation, and he had the awards to back up that judgment, including being named to the first team All-Ohio Division II squad.

Nance was awarded a basketball scholarship to Northwestern, where he is averaging 12 minutes a game and hoping to become a starter, maybe next year.

Revere hasn’t suffered in the wake of his graduation, posting a 13-3 overall record with only one loss in the Suburban League.

“I felt we could do some special things,” head coach Dean Rahas said. “So I’m not surprised.”

Rather than feel sorry for themselves after losing their star player, the Minutemen seem to have used the loss of Nance as inspiration.

“Absolutely,” Rahas said. “They welcomed it as a challenge. They felt bad about losing Pete, but there are four other guys on the floor. It wasn’t one against five, and guys are more motivated this year.”

Another characteristic of the team that Rahas admires is compatibility.

“They like each other, and they want to continue to get better,” the coach said.

All five Revere starters are upperclassmen and have the experience that usually accompanies that status, which normally is a plus.

Senior point guard Samson Albert and senior Sean Leyden make up the backcourt. Albert leads the team in assists with almost six per game.

The Minutemen are not blessed with great height, but junior center Hunter Drenth is 6-8, and senior forward Chris Richardson is 6-5. Drenth leads the team in scoring with 15 points per game, and Richardson averages 14. Both players average about eight rebounds. The other forward is junior Grant Scherler.

Rahas uses an eight-man rotation. The first player off the bench is sophomore guard Jimmy Salamone, the team’s third double-figures scorer with a 12-point average. Sophomore guard Andrew Rinn and junior forward Andrew Cooke also get regular minutes.

Revere has maintained a good balance between offense and defense. “We score a lot,” Rahas said. “We scored 100 points in one game, 89 and 81 in other games. It’s the highest scoring team I’ve ever had. But we can also play defense.”

The Minutemen are outscoring opposing teams by 12 points per game. Revere is averaging 73 points and giving up 61.

It will take a few weeks to determine whether the Minutemen can equal or exceed last season’s achievement of winning a district title, but Rahas believes his players are on a mission.

“These guys want to make their mark,” he said. “They want to make history.”