Bringing in the bigs

The Gryphons men's basketball team has landed a couple of top recruits to try and bolster their frontcourt depth.

6'8" forward John Brutto was the third ranked high school centre in all of Canada, averaging a filthy 22 points, 18 rebounds and 4 blocks per game.

Dan Latka is a 6'11" centre who will be expected to play bigtime interior defence with Duncan Milne having graduated. He was his high school's MVP for the last two seasons in Parry Sound and will likely compete with Duncan Reid and Adam Bering for minutes at the 5 position this year.

I'm really excited to see what these two players bring the floor. We've commented at length about the Gryphons lack of frontcourt size, especially given the loss of Milne, who anchored the position for the better part of 5 years.

Guelph has also recruited Adrian Achonwa, a 6'3" guard to join the team next year. Achonwa played high school ball just down the road at Centennial CVI in Guelph, the same school that produced Dan McCarthy just a year ago. It'll be interesting to hear what Dan has to say about Adrian and we'll try to get on that soon.

The recruitments of Brutto, Latka and Achonwa brings the number of men's hoops newbies to 5 as they will join Matt Howlett and Brady Heslip who were added earlier.

Still waiting on news about new recruits for the women's team but with Kris Yallin being the only graduating member, I don't expect to see many new faces there this year.

MT

Yallin's last stand

Kris Yallin, Guelph's outgoing captain on the women's basketball team, and star fourth year guard will play in her final university game next Saturday on May 9 taking part in the Inaugural OUA All-Star Game at RIM Park in Waterloo.

Yallin, the team's leading scorer, rebounder and three-point shooter was an OUA West Second Team All-Star this year and will be moving on to pursue an MBA at Wilfrid Laurier University in the fall. As a team co-captain this year with Morgan Jean and Rachel Hancock, Yallin was instrumental in helping to bring along what was a VERY young team, but one that also achieved much more than what was expected of them, earning a playoff berth before falling to McMaster.

I got the chance to interview Kris earlier this year for a piece we did for The Ontarion and she was probably the most personable athlete I met over the past year working for the paper. Having been a part of the broadcasting team that covered Gryphons basketball this year, I got a chance to see many of the top OUA 'ballers and I can safely say that Yallin will not be out of place in this team.

Some of her teammates in the upcoming All-Star game will include OUA West stars Dranadia Roc, Taylor Smith, Alyssa Wulff and Gryphon killer Amanda Anderson, who lit up the Gryphs on multiple occasions with her three-point shooting this year for the Western Mustangs.

If you're a fan of OUA basketball, this game is a can't miss as it's a chance to see some of the greatest female players in the province.

More recruits sign on

The Gryphons football team made a big splash a little over a month ago with their version of "National Signing Day", introducing the incoming rookies who had signed a letter of intent to play for Coach Kyle Walters and his staff.

Last week, I talked to Dillon Dimitroff, a wide receiver from Burlington, whose father, uncle and grandfather are all former Gryphons (Dillon's uncle, Tom Dimitroff, is the current General Manager of the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL and the reigning Executive of the Year). Dillon said that the signing event was very impressive and he really liked how the school was making the incoming rookies feel comfortable and important - this kid has a great head on his shoulders and should contribute sooner rather than later. He'll be looking to intern with the Falcons this summer to get some professional football advice - can't hurt!

Anyways, back to the point of this post - I've just learned from the great people in athletics that Coach Walters now has a second group of recruits who are poised to become Gryphons and once again, there is a significant Niagara Region flavour in the group. Walters has now recruited 4 players from Niagara Falls to come to Guelph and 3 others from nearby Port Colborne, Fort Erie and Welland. We'll look to run a story on these guys in the fall as I'm sure they've all played with/against each other at some point.

With the two groups of recruits that have committed to Guelph, the rookie class is tentatively set at 27 new players so there's going to be lots of new talents this year. Granted, we won't likely see them all on the field during the games - some will red-shirt during their first year - but one player I'm really looking at to make a big contribution is running back Corey Davidson out of Port Colborne. He'll likely be the Gryphons' #2 back this year behind Nick Fitzgibbon and also see time returning kicks.

Also, anyone who follows Gryphons athletics knows that Port Colborne has been a great supplier of athletes to the program as it is the hometown of the basketballing Yallin sisters. Steph Yallin was a former all-star and team captain and Kris Yallin is now graduating after four years of outstanding play - she was a co-captain and OUA West Second-Team All-Star this year and one of the best three-point shooters in Gryphons history. Alex Yallin is going into her third year and has shown potential to be a big contributor in the backcourt. ALSO, when I talked to Kris earlier this year, she told me that there are TWO MORE Yallin sisters in high school with basketball talent and Gryphon aspirations. Despite being a very small town, Port Colborne continues to produce top-shelf athletes - hopefully Corey Davidson will be no different.

Stay tuned for more updates...