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Boys Basketball: Dounis gets his turn to run Maine South offense
Evanston, 12/03/11-- Maine South's Frank Dounis #24) goes in one-handed against Evanston's Jordan Perrin during Saturday night's game at Evanston. | Eric Davis ~ For Sun-Times Media
Updated: July 8, 2012 6:25PM
Frank Dounis is in line to become Maine South’s fourth point guard in four seasons this winter.
He got considerable minutes last season as a junior, and Hawks coach Tony Lavorato expects the 6-foot-1 guard to step in right away for the graduated Nick Calabrese.
“That’s kind of how we’ve been doing it the last few years,” said Lavorato, who hasn’t welcomed back a starting point guard since Pat Maher started back-to-back seasons in 2008-09 and ’09-10. “Frank started and learned under Nick last year. It’s like we always have a point guard in training.”
Dounis will get lots of experience running the offense this month when the Hawks play at Riverside-Brookfield’s summer league and in three shootouts.
Among the teams at the 16-team league are Young, Orr, St. Rita and Mundelein.
“There are a lot of different types of teams there that play a lot of different styles,” Lavorato said. “I think that will be really good for us.”
Maine South, which has won two regional titles in the last three seasons, will participate in shootouts at Buffalo Grove, Illinois Wesleyan and Willowbrook.
“We go six days a week and will use all 25 of our days in June,” said Lavorato. Several Hawks also compete for AAU clubs and July is the evaluation period for college coaches. “We have kids who also play football and baseball and want to take vacations, so the tradeoff is getting it all done this month.”
Dounis is one of several players back to the team with varsity experience. In fact, 11 players will be with the team this summer who were on the roster at the end of last season, including rising senior John Solari, who’s been on varsity since his freshman year.
A player to watch this summer is sophomore-to-be George Sergeant, a 6-7 post. He will split his time this summer with the football team.
“We feel good about our group, and we will hit the floor running this month,” Lavorato said. “It’s a little different with so many returning players. We can lay the foundation quicker and see how much we’ve improved since March. I’m really excited to see how much we have grown.”
