State-championship seasons do not occur very often for most high school athletic programs. That has definitely been the case for Moon Area boys' basketball.
The Tigers won the school's first PIAA title in that sport last season with a 52-50 victory over Holy Ghost Prep in the PIAA final in Hershey.
Moon is a long-shot for it to happen again this season. Coach Jeff Ackermann said, however, he believes Moon will remain among the top teams in WPIAL Class AAA. Ackermann has faith in his program despite five of the top seven players graduating after a 29-3 WPIAL and PIAA title campaign.
"For the last two years, we've had the same team. Now we have spots open and new guys stepping up," Ackermann said. "We still have to come together as a team like the group we had last year. This season, it's almost a whole new group."
Moon will be bigger than last year, despite the graduation losses of 6-4 guard Duane Compo, 6-5 forward Ryan Helfrich and 6-4, 280-pound center A.Q. Shipley, who is playing football at Penn State. This trio of three-year starters combined to average more than 40 points per game. Compo plays at Wheeling Jesuit College.
The newcomers include 6-4, 235-pound junior Tyler Hers-perger, 6-6 sophomore forward Chris Jeannot and 6-7 junior center R.J. Rush.
"You have to have everybody on the team with one common goal, and that's to win," Ackermann said.
"You can't worry about individual stats or how many points you score. You need to have guys who may score 20 one night and only get four the next night without being upset about it.
"If they can be happy that the team won, those are the kind of players who win championships."
Also considered a promising young prospect is 6-3 freshman guard Brian Walsh, who might become the team's go-to player in the next couple of years. Walsh has the potential to become a consistent scorer like Compo, who led the Tigers in scoring the past two years.
Walsh led the Moon freshman team in scoring last year, despite only being in the eighth grade. Hersperger, Jeannot and Rush played large roles in a 20-4 junior varsity season at Moon.
The up-and-coming varsity players have big shoes to fill with the departure of Shipley, an exceptional defensive player, and Compo, who finished with more than 1,500 career points.
While Ackermann has talented young players to step in for proven veterans who have graduated, the success of this year's team will largely depend on the holdovers from last season.
They are 6-2 senior guard Derek Gallagher, 5-10 senior guard Zack Engel and 6-2 junior guard Danny Walsh, the older brother of Brian Walsh.
Gallagher and Engel came up with clutch performances during Moon's playoff run last season.
Walsh was the team's sixth man last season, but missed the playoffs due to a broken wrist in practice just a few days before the postseason began. Also expected to contribute is senior 6-1 guard-forward Jason Clark, who earned a letter last season as the team's ninth man.
"Jason's a good player who's led our JV the last couple of years," Ackermann said.
"I think he's ready to step up and have a good senior year with the varsity."
Ackermann has been encouraged by the competitiveness of his team in its preseason scrimmages against Mt. Lebanon and Pine-Richland. Ackermann knows it is unrealistic to expect his team to start the season 16-1, as it did last year, but he believes the Tigers can have a third consecutive 20-win season.
Moon will open the season Friday against Brashear in the Tigers' tournament.
Moon also will play a non-section game at Bethel Park next Tuesday and face Upper St. Clair in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at LaRoche College Dec. 11.
Other non-section games will be later in the season against Class AAAA North Hills, Class AAA South Park and Class AA powerhouse Beaver Falls.
The section schedule will open Dec. 14 at Blackhawk.
"We have four good guards and we have nice size," Ackermann said.
"We play a tough, non-section schedule because I want to challenge our players as much as possible.
"We just have to keep working hard and hopefully we'll come together.
"I think what we did last year is really going to rub off on this group. They were around it and I think they still want to be a part of it."
First Published: December 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
