Armed with a solid returning nucleus from last winter’s Class C tournament team, the Schenck Wolverines figured to be key players this season as the East Millinocket school moved to the Class D ranks.

Midway through its 2005-06 schedule, coach Steve LeVasseur’s club has done little to dispel that optimism.

According to the latest Heal point ratings, Schenck is the No. 1 team in Eastern Maine Class D and 9-0 after Tuesday night’s 71-42 win at neighboring Stearns of Millinocket.

“I’m feeling pretty good about what we’re doing,” said LeVasseur, now in the third season of his second stint as Schenck’s head coach. “We’ve still got a lot of things to accomplish. We’ve still got a lot of little things to work on, especially on the offensive side. Defense and rebounding I feel pretty good about, but offensively we’ve got be a little bit better at moving the ball.”

Schenck has won its first eight games by an average of 14.2 points, with the Wolverines scoring 61.7 points per game while allowing just 47.5 a contest.

That’s not to say the Wolverines haven’t had a couple of close calls in road tests at Piscataquis of Guilford and Penquis of Milo. Schenck edged PCHS 48-46 on Dec. 28 and outlasted Penquis 54-52 last Saturday night.

“We’re playing better of late,” said 6-foot-2 senior center Nick Bishop, “We had a few games where we didn’t play that great, but we’re getting it together now as a team and playing more of a complete game.”

Bishop has been one key to that effort, teaming with 6-2 senior forward Chris Byron to give the Wolverines one of the more formidable low-post tandems in Eastern D. Both are lefthanded and, while not overly tall, they possess soft shooting touches and considerable quickness that aids them in creating shots or rebounding opportunities.

“Both see the floor and pass the ball pretty well and are pretty unselfish,” said LeVasseur. “The more we work together that way, the tougher we’re going to be.”

Bishop and Byron are complemented by four perimeter-oriented players in senior Jordan Pelkey, junior Kerry Thompson and sophomores Mike Lowell and Lanny Thompson.

“We have some talent, but at the beginning of the year we were playing as a lot of I’s, there was a lot of one-on-one stuff,” Pelkey said. “We’re pulling together, and hopefully we can keep getting better.

“I think we’ve realized a lot from watching games that the I’s don’t work, you win as a team. When you play as a team, you’re a lot harder to defend, and I think we’re getting it.”

Schenck’s schedule reflects its recent Class C heritage – the Wolverines last won a state title as a Class C team in 1994, during LeVasseur’s first nine-year tenure as the Wolverines’ head coach.

Schenck has six Class C opponents (Houlton, Orono, Penobscot Valley of Howland, Penquis, PCHS and Stearns) as well as three Class D foes (Bangor Christian, Lee Academy and Katahdin of Stacyville).

Two of the more intriguing games during the second half of the Wolverines’ schedule come within a four-day span, when Schenck hosts Katahdin on Jan. 31 and then visits the Cougars on Feb. 3. Katahdin also was 9-0 after its 80-44 win at Hodgdon, and is ranked second behind Schenck in the Heal Points.

Lincoln makes history

Scoring 1,000 points during a high school basketball career is an impressive achievement, but Emery Lincoln’s surpassing of that milestone last Saturday carries additional weight.

He’s the first player from his school to reach the mark.

Lincoln, a 6-foot-3-senior forward at Greater Houlton Christian Academy, needed just five points entering Saturday’s home game against Madawaska at the University of Maine- Presque Isle to reach 1,000.

He scored 23, but GHCA lost a hard-fought 75-70 decision to a Class C Madawaska team that shot 10-of-12 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“Emery’s been a four-year starter for us,” said GHCA coach Terry Cummings, who knows quite a bit about such milestones, having scored 1,973 points during his high school days at Houlton and then topping 2,000 points as a collegian at UMPI.

“He’s a lefthanded power forward who creates plenty of matchup problems for other teams, though a lot of them are now double-teaming him and trying different things against him.”

Lincoln, who averaged 19 points per game last season, is averaging 22 points and 10 rebounds this winter for the 6-2 Eagles, ranked eighth in Eastern D.

Greater Houlton Christian Academy has fielded a boys varsity basketball team for four years.

Bowlers eyes varsity future

If Ed Cotter has his way, bowling soon will join basketball, baseball and football in the minds of Maine’s high school student-athletes and fans.

The Levant man was spurred to explore establishing a high school-level bowling program three years ago during a conversation with one of his sons. From that chat has evolved Penobscot Valley High School Bowling, a third-year league for high school-age tenpin bowlers from the Bangor area.

After Cotter’s conversation with his son, he contacted Andy Meucci, manager of the Family Fun Bowling Center in Bangor, and “we decided it was something we wanted to do,” he said.

The program has experienced steady, modest growth. Three teams, representing Bangor, Bangor homeschoolers and bowlers from Hampden Academy and Hermon, competed the first year. That expanded to six teams last winter, and to nine teams this season involving 47 bowlers from Bangor, Bangor Christian, Brewer, Hampden Academy, Hermon and Calvary Chapel of Orrington.

The teams practice each Tuesday and have matches each Thursday. The match schedule includes not only intraleague competition among member teams, but also crossover matches against teams from similar programs based in Hallowell, Lewiston, Skowhegan and Waterville.

The season runs from late November until early March, when a 10-team state championship tournament will be held involving teams from Penobscot Valley High School Bowling as well as the other four lanes that host high school leagues.

Cotter, who serves as PVHSB’s head coach, said one goal of the program is to get bowling established as a recognized sport in the state’s high school hierarchy.

“We want it to be something where kids can earn a letter,” he said.

Cotter said his efforts have been endorsed by the Maine Principals’ Association, but he added that so far he’s had limited success advancing that cause in individual school systems.