EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated with Saturday night’s game at Sandusky included in a box score at the bottom. The Blue Streaks dumped the Minutemen 82-60.
LEXINGTON — Brayden Fogle may still be the centerpiece of a Lexington basketball team filled with great expectations.
But the 6-foot-5, 220-pound forward — a first-team All-Ohio selection as a sophomore –has not been able to step on the court thus far this season. He’s still recovering from a broken wrist sustained Nov. 16 in a football playoff loss to Toledo Central Catholic.
The Ohio Cardinal Conference Player of the Year last season, Fogle averaged 14.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game in leading the Minutemen to a 22-3 record and a spot in the district title game against Shelby.
Veteran coach Scott Hamilton’s team, which returned three other starters, has found ways to win with Fogle sitting on the bench, his surgically repaired wrist progressing from a hard cast to a soft wrap as the season unfolds.
After his team improved to 9-1 overall and 5-1 in the OCC on Friday night with a 71-54 win against Ashland, Hamilton said he wasn’t sure when Fogle would rejoin his teammates on the court.
The Minutemen are among three teams in the conference with just one loss, including Mansfield Senior (6-1, 4-1) and Wooster (6-3, 4-1).
Lexington beat the Tygers (74-70) this season while the Generals handed the Minutemen their only league loss (75-68).
“I haven’t really talked with him a lot,” Hamilton said. “I’ve got 10 guys (currently playing) I am trying to worry about.
“But the last I heard, when he got his cast off, the doctor told him the 15th of January was about that range.
“The only thing I talked to him (about) when he’s in practice and he’s shooting with the other hand is, ‘Is it feeling good? Are you having any pain?’ He’s saying ‘no,’ so I am assuming it might be a little bit sooner than that,” Hamilton said.
“It’s fluctuating.”
While Fogle remains on the mend, the head coach in his 13th season has to focus his attention on the talented cast that’s making it all work this year, including junior point guard Seven Allen (16.4 ppg) and junior forward Joe Caudill (12 points, 8 rebounds per game) and a pair of sharp-shooting senior guards Gavin Husty and Jakob Legron.
“I think with what we’ve got going right now, that’s got to be where my focus is,” Hamilton said after the win Friday night.
His team travels to Sandusky (6-4) on Saturday night for a showdown with a potential rival in the Division III district tournament in Willard.
But that doesn’t mean the winningest coach (211-93) in school history isn’t keeping an eye on Fogle’s progress.
“One of my coaches I talk with the most, he’s working (Fogle) out down on the other end of the court in practice when we get an opportunity do do that. So I really haven’t talked with Brayden a lot about his situation,” Hamilton said.
“But he’s trying to make sure that he is ready to go as soon as that doctor says he is cleared … conditioning wise and all that stuff … so he’s working on the other end of the court while we’re getting ready for the games.”