This year’s White River High boys basketball team will be leaving its fate in the hands of a threesome of guards in senior sharpshooters Billy Kiel and Jason Tyler along with junior distributor Alex Sayler, who in his sophomore year led the South Puget Sound League 2A in assists by doling out more than 100.

Kiel and Tyler were both permanent occupants in the SPSL 2A’s Top 10 scorer statistics, leading the Hornets deep into the playoffs. White River just missed a chance to move on to the state basketball festivities, despite posting a perfectly average 7-7 league mark, mostly by virtue of suffering multiple heartbreaking setbacks in the final seconds of contests.

SPSL 2A foe Franklin Pierce graduated the majority of 2011’s successful squad, but the Hornets will still have to deal with the likes of Sumner High and Clover Park crew that is the WIAA Class 2A’s defending state basketball title winner.

White River head man Rick Tripp said with the amount of time, energy and hard work his blossoming ballers put into running, pumping iron and toiling in the arduous summer basketball leagues, WRHS has the potential to be a vastly improved squad.

Helping out this year’s Hornet squad will be 6 foot, 3 inch senior Lyle McCarragher, a candidate for the power forward or center position.

Tripp hasn’t penciled anyone in for starting positions and is looking at choices like underclassmen athletes Cole Johnson, Brandon Dove, Spence Swigart and  Robert Foster.