Valmeyer’s boys basketball team will be young, but led by a trio of players this season.

Michael Chism will be the team’s offensive force.

“We expect him to get about 20 points per game or something like that,” coach Rick Crossin said. “He’s a big scorer for us. We’ve got three of them.”

Owen Miller will be the post presence and Vaughn Larsen will run the offense as the point guard.

So far, Chism is living up to those expectations. He’s scoring 16.3 points per game right now, including 30 points in one game and 25 in another. All three are the team’s leading scorers.

“I think our kids are going to be really receptive to anything that’s been said. I like that they’re really easy to coach,” Crossin said.

“They’ll listen to you, and I think that’s one of the biggest attributes they have. They can also shoot and they’re quick. They understand the game and I think that’s going to help us.”

Overall, Crossin sees the team finishing with about a .500 winning percentage. That’s also where he thinks they can get in conference games, too.

“To tell you the honest truth, you want to win them all,” Crossin said. “For the conference games, we’d like to be at least .500 in conference if not better. That’s one of my pet peeves also, to win the games we are supposed to win. If we lose some games that are tough or win some games that are tough, that we’re not supposed to win, that’s great.”

The team lost all four of their games in the Metro East Lutheran Thanksgiving Turkey Tip-Off Tournament to start the season. Crossin said the team was battling through some injuries. Larsen was dealing with an ankle injury at the time.

“When we get everybody back and healthy, we should start winning some games,” Crossin said. “We had a pretty rough game against Metro East Lutheran, they played much better than we did. We’re pretty young.”

Last season, Valmeyer finished the year 16-14. The Pirates have lost their top two offensive threats from a year ago. Ryan Unterseh led the team with 13.2 points per game. Zach Williams followed by averaging 12.4 points per game.

Currently, the team is 1-6.

The Pirates will play at New Athens at 6:15 p.m. Friday.

“We’re pretty young, but I think we’ve got a pretty good group of kids,” Crossin said. “My seniors are good leaders too. My junior Vaughn Larsen is our best leader, I think he’s one of the best we’ve had in a while. I’m really happy with him.”