19 hours Ago By Mike Oeffner
When the Norwalk boys basketball team opens the 2024-2025 season at Ballard on Tuesday night, head coach Aaron Pelzer expects to have five seniors in the starting lineup. The Warriors graduated two outstanding all-around players from last year’s team in prolific scorer Redek Born, who averaged 23 points a night, and Aidan Harder. Born and Harder helped lead Norwalk to the Class 4A state tournament as juniors, followed by 18 wins and a share of the Little Hawkeye Conference title last season.
Stylistically, this year’s team will have a different look, but many of the same faces are back. The Warriors return three starters in Cameron Thomas, Tim Koerselman and Grady Sigrist, who all averaged between six and eight points per game as juniors. Koerselman was third on the team with 36 made 3-pointers.
Three other seniors – Mason Johnson, Jack Larson and Kaleb Foltz – are also contending for starting jobs. Pelzer tells KNIA Sports that the Warriors will likely feature a deeper rotation this winter and a team that plays well together and has confidence in each other. Pelzer expects crisp ball movement, shooting and defensive versatility to be among the team’s strengths.
“We have 13 guys on our varsity team this year and we don’t have a guy that can’t play,” he said. “They all bring something to the table. They all have some strengths that I think we can utilize.
Obviously, with having seven seniors I’m pretty positive and pretty settled into the fact that we’re going to start five seniors. I think that always is kind of an advantage.” Pelzer says that the Warriors had a good summer of basketball and that the expectation remains to win a lot of basketball games this season.
Following Tuesday’s game at Ballard, Norwalk will host Pella to open conference play on Friday, December 6..
