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Prep Hoops Preivew: Gallatin County | Miller, Hawks knows defense will win championships

Gallatin County head coach Doug Miller knows he will have the scoring this year. That comes in the form of Seth Ramsey.

But on the flip side, Miller knows to be competitive and try to repeat as champions of the Greater Egyptian Conference, defense will be the key to the Hawks' machine this season.

"Our size is bad," Miller maintains. "When you look at conference and you have teams like Crab Orchard, who has a 6-foot-5 and 6-6 kid, Thompsonville has a 6-8 kid, Pope County goes 6-6 and 6-7 and Norris City-Omaha-Enfield has a 6-5 and 6-3 kid. We don't have anyone like that.

"Audie Goebel (sophomore forward) is our biggest guy at 6-foot. We're going to have to learn really quickly how to guard in the post and how to eliminate the opposition from getting second chance opportunities against us."

The makeup of a successful season according to Miller is if his team can guard the way he wants them to guard. How easy that can be remains to be seen.

"After watching these kids practice for three to four hours a day for the last week, I think it's going to be easier than I thought it would be a month ago," Miller said. "We're still not where we need to be by any means, but we have to guard people, it's really our only chance. It's the only chance to beat the better, bigger teams, is to guard."

Defense wins championships and Gallatin County has Ramsey, who also knows a little something about winning championships.

He returns as the Hawks' leading scorer and had 27 points in a 75-45 win over Cisne at the Grayville Tournament and added 16 in a 68-50 loss to Edwards County, but the 6-0 senior guard tied a career-high with 43 points in Gallatin County's 65-58 win over Grayville to the start the season.

It was quite the coming out party for Ramsey - at least for this year - but what he has done, isn't nearly as important as what he means to Miller and Gallatin County.

"Last year he was a program builder," Miller said of Ramsey. "He taught our freshmen how to play hard and take this game seriously. He's humble and that's carried over to his teammates.

"Every team we play is going to have to have a game plan to stop him and that's the X-Factor. If you stop him, that's going to hurt our chance of winning, but he's made these other kids so much better and when a team puts three defenders on him and he has to give the ball up to someone else to get someone else to score."

Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register and Eldorado Daily Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.

Gallatin County Schedule + Roster

<p><strong>Gallatin County Schedule</strong></p>

<p>Nov. 21 vs. Grayville*                     65-58 W<br />Nov. 22 vs. Edwards County*             68-50 L<br />Nov. 23 vs. Cisne                         75-45 W<br />Dec. 2 at Eldorado                         6 PM<br />Dec. 3 GALATIA                         6 PM<br />Dec. 6 CRAB ORCHARD                 6 PM<br />Dec. 9 POPE COUNTY                 6 PM<br />Dec. 13 CARRIER MILLS-STONEFORT     6 PM<br />Dec. 26-28 at Eldorado Holiday Tournament     TBA<br />Jan. 3 at Carmi-White County              6 PM<br />Jan. 6 at Pope County                     6 PM<br />Jan. 7 at Webber Township             6 PM<br />Jan. 10 WAYNE CITY                     6 PM<br />Jan. 14 ELVERADO                         4 PM<br />Jan. 17 at NCOE                         6 PM<br />Jan. 20 at Hardin County             6 PM<br />Jan. 22-28 at GEC Tournament         TBA<br />Jan. 31 at Carrier Mills-Stonefort         6 PM<br />Feb. 4 vs. Hamilton County#             10 AM<br />Feb. 7 at Thompsonville                 6 PM<br />Feb. 14 HARDIN COUNTY             6 PM<br /><br />*at Grayville Tournament<br />#at Rich Herrin Shootout</p>

<p><strong>Gallatin County Roster</strong><br />No.    Name                    Class    Hgt.    Pos.<br />11    Seth Ramsey            Sr.    6-0    G<br />35    Trevor Duvall            Sr.    5-10    G<br />42    Bryon Wargell        Sr.    5-11    F<br />23    Hunter Walters        Sr.    5-10    F<br />43    Luis Rubio                Sr.    5-8    G<br />25    Aaron Walters        Jr.    5-10    G<br />24    Robbie Prince        So.    5-10    G<br />34    Audie Goebel            So.    6-0    F<br />31    Garrett Rushing        So.    5-10    G<br />33    Lucas Reeder            So.    5-10    G<br />45    Braden Brazier        So.    6-2    C<br />03     Dawson Hish            Fr.    6-1    G<br /><br /></p>