All five Oakville High School boys basketball starters return this season

Hopes are high for the 2024-25 Oakville Tigers varsity boys basketball team as Nick Traxler’s squad returns all five starters from a year ago.

“This season, as always, we will look to win our conference pool and compete for a district title,” Traxler said.

Returning players senior Logan Scholz (nine points and four returns per game ) and junior Andrew Eckhard (11 points, three returns and 3.5 steals per game) led the way for the Tigers last season, and are expected to do so again.

Traxler will also have six-foot-four sophomore point guard Max Simokaitis returning. Simokaitis played in Oakville’s final 12 games as a freshman last season, averaging nearly five points per game.

With all five starters returning, Traxler said one of the team’s strengths is that the players all know each other well.

The team is also set on improving upon last season’s record. Last season, Oakville finished with a losing record of 7-19.

“We have very good team chemistry. The guys are wanting to be successful after a couple subpar seasons,” Traxler said. “This group is working extremely hard and we like the competitiveness of every practice.”

As far as strengths of the team, the Tigers should have good depth to go along with experience at the varsity level. Throw in some hard-nosed defense, and Oakville fans have reason to be optimistic.

“We will be strong defensively and I believe we have some great depth this season,” Traxler said. “We have eight players back who all averaged at least four points-per-game last season and we return a lot of (players with) varsity minutes played.”

Despite this, Traxler said that integrating new players, as well as lack of height, will be a couple of key challenges the team will face this season.

“We will have to rely on a strong positive culture and our defensive buy-in,” Traxler said. “We are just looking to play one game at a time and continue working to improve.”

The Tigers opened the season with a win on Nov. 26 against Affton, defeating the Cougars 67-26.

Oakville defeated Mehlville 72-49 in the opening round of the Southside Classic on Dec. 2. The rivals will play again on Feb. 14 for a regular season game.

“Our hope is those past experiences translate into positive outcomes for us this season,” Traxler said.