The defending Western Maine champs in basketball are getting ready for another run as the 2013-2014 regular season opens up on Tuesday, Dec. 10 with the Boothbay Region High School Seahawks entertaining the Dirigo Cougars.

Seahawks head coach I.J. Pinkham is cautiously optimistic about his recent edition. Some strong parts from a year ago remain, while some significant replacements are still a work in progress.

“Andrew (Hallinan) has had to make the switch to point guard from shooting guard and is doing a good job,” said Pinkham. “But I have three or four kids competing for the that off guard position and there is not a lot separating them at this time. So I will be playing a lot of people until someone steps up and earns that role and the same is true with a couple other positions.”

The big returning contributor is last season's leading scorer and rebounder as well as the Harry C. Edwards winner, John Hepburn, who will be counted on to remain as one of the top players in the Mountain Valley Conference. Evan Hepburn, who is recovering from a broken finger and will be out for at least a week, will also be counted on for rebounding and offensive punch.

“So far, in preseason, we have been up and down; sometimes we look really good but haven't developed the consistency I am looking for at this point. We have to do a better job at staying out of foul trouble as that was again a recurring theme over the weekend in a pair of exhibition games,” Pinkham said. “But practices have been going well; of course, we want to run and one thing I would like to see us do is improve defensively, especially our ability to apply full court pressure late in games.”

Besides Andrew Hallinan, who along with John Hepburn are co-captains, Shawn Simmons and Bradley Drummond are the only three seniors on the club.

Juniors include Aaron Dickinson, Julian Aponte and Nick Kilgus, who are all competing for playing time, as is sophomore Nick Gorey, who the coach mentioned as playing well so far. Other juniors include the two Hepburns, returning veteran Joseph DiMauro, and Nick Burge and Andrew Blackman, who are up from the junior varsity. Sophomore Abel Bryer rounds out the roster.

The Seahawks will get to measure themselves right out of the gate as Dirigo, as usual, should be right near the top when things shake out in February. But so will your Seahawks as they are each and every year. Mountain Valley and Maranacook have both dropped to Class C.

John Gosselin will be leading the junior varsity and also joining Pinkham on the sideline will be long-time assistant Dennis Rice. Mark Gosselin will also be involved as his work schedule lets him and Dan Hallinan has also joined the coaching staff.