By JARROD POTTER
SIGNING season isn’t over for the Casey Cavaliers with the Big V Division 1 men’s side adding former SEABL guard Ben Louis to its roster.
With a resume as long as his three-point bombs – playing basketball in college for James Madison University before joining Dandenong SEABL and Frankston SEABL – Louis is the next in a long line of ex-Dandenong SEABL players to be enticed down the highway and join the Big V.
The 191cm guard is raring to go at in the Cavaliers strip and Casey coach Stewart Baird said it all happened quickly to get him into the blue-and-silver for the remainder of the 2015 season.
“Ben agreed on Tuesday night and was at practice and we got his clearance and registration processed this morning (Thursday) and he’ll play this weekend,” Baird said.
With Louis leaving Frankston and considering some time out of the game, he kept in touch with Baird about the prospects of practising with the side to stay fit and focused.
The coach offered him a far better opportunity, though, giving Louis the option to join the side if he wanted.
The offer didn’t wait on the table long as just this week Louis gained his clearance to play and will be ready to square off for Casey this weekend.
“For his own reasons he decided he wasn’t going to play at Frankston and was going to take a year off, but asked me if he could come down to our practice,” Baird said.
“It’s always good to have an experienced guy on court at practice that the other guys can work off and I said to him afterwards ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking about playing, but if you start to think you’d like to, let me know’ and he reached out to me last week.
“I went back to him on Monday and we talked about it and he was keen to go – he’s played with both (Brent) Hobba and (Matt) Witherden before and he’s pretty close to both of them so it’s a good fit for him and he feels really comfortable and he’s certainly going to be helpful.”
Baird hopes to run Louis primarily as the side’s point-guard but the Dandenong/ Frankston alumnus has the added flexibility to feature as a shooting-guard or small forward.
“He gives us a bigger guard who is able to defend some of the guys we’ve struggled with like Max Allin and Corey Standerfer at Chelsea,” Baird said.
“He’s a great defender and takes a lot of pride in his defence and we need a bigger guy to combat those guys if we’ll be successful.”
Louis will join former Rangers Matt Witherden, Lester Strong and Brent Hobba among others in his first Big V match for the Casey Cavaliers on Saturday night against Shepparton before his first home match on Sunday afternoon from 2pm against Warrandyte.
