Woodburn Independent Online

Avgi named league MVP again

Woodburn junior Andy Avgi led the league in scoring and rebounding

• By: Garrett Rudolph  
• Published: 3/9/2010 10:16:41 AM

Photo By: Garrett RudolphLeague MVP
Woodburn junior Andy Avgi led the Mid-Willamette Conference in scoring and rebounding and was named league player of the year for the second consecutive season.

WOODBURN — For the second consecutive season, Mid-Willamette Conference coaches were in agreement: Andy Avgi was the best player in the league.
 
Despite placing fourth in the conference and missing the state playoffs for the first time since 2006, Avgi was named player of the year, after leading the league in scoring and rebounding.
 
Avgi averaged 17.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game during conference play.

For the entire season, he led the Bulldogs in nearly every offensive category, including points per game (19.0), total rebounds (251), field goals made (177), free throws made (111) and field goal percentage (63.0 percent), and was second on the team in free-throw shooting percentage (67.7 percent). He also led the team in steals (39) and tied for the team lead in blocks (29). Last season, Avgi was a first-team all-state selection, in addition to earning conference player of the year honors as a sophomore.
 
Dunn said a player of Avgi’s size, at about 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds, should have gotten more rest during the season. Dunn said the physical wear and tear of the season, coupled with the fact that he drew so much attention from opposing teams, took its toll on the Woodburn junior.
 
“To his credit, he never complained and he’s just a guy who really wants to win,” said Dunn.
 
“He got physically worn down, but it was merely a case of the coaches asking an awful lot. We had to play him obviously a lot and we really leaned on him extensively. Anybody who watched us would have seen that.”
 
Next season, Avgi has a chance to become the Mid-Willamette Conference’s first three-time player of the year, and has his sights set on a return trip to the playoffs.
 
“I think he’s a guy who’s pretty motivated,” Dunn said. “From what he’s showed and what he’s said, he’s going to work real hard to make sure his last year of basketball is pretty memorable.”
 
Also earning league recognition were senior Seth Gregoire and junior Jonaton Rios, who were both honorable mentions.
 
Gregoire was the team’s lone senior in the starting lineup, and averaged 8.9 points and 5.2 rebounds per game during league play. For the season, he tied for the team lead with 29 blocks.
 
“If you evaluate based on where someone is at the beginning, versus where they are at the end, Seth made huge improvements,” said Dunn. “Really, by the end of the season, he was a pretty legitimate defender, he was disrupting shots, getting rebounds, had a good outside shot.”
 
Dunn compared Gregoire to previous Woodburn players like Jeremy Fackrell and Ryan Baguley, who have often been asked to guard the opposing team’s post players and have been valuable members of the team because of their hustle and hard work.
 
“Seth really filled that role pretty admirably,” added Dunn.
 
For the season, Rios averaged 8.1 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. His 27-point night in the regular season finale catapulted the Bulldogs to a one-game tiebreaker with South Albany for the final playoff spot.
 
Rios, Avgi and senior wing Alex Arreguin were the only three Woodburn players to play in all 25 games this season.
 
Although Woodburn lost that  playoff game and finished out the season with an overall record of 11-14, Dunn said he saw a tremendous amount of growth during the year.
 
“We really had some emotional and some mental setbacks early in the season that were pretty hard to recover from,” said Dunn, pointing out Woodburn’s 0-3 start in conference play and a record of 2-7 after nine games.
 
“I think the season had the potential to be kind of a dismal disappointment,” he said “And it didn’t end that way.”
 
The Bulldogs closed out the regular season winning four of five down the stretch, and Dunn said about midway through the regular season the team “just seemed to get a little bit feistier, played more cohesively.”
 
“We were doing some things away from basketball, that helped,” he said. “We started to play more as a team, it seemed like. While we didn’t finish where we wanted to finish, I think we were playing our best at the end. I think the kids were having the most fun there at the end.”
 
With the team graduating just one starter, the Bulldogs are expected to return a number of experienced players from this year’s roster, which included four juniors and two freshmen.
 
One such player who benefited from the experience gained this year was freshman Martin Ray, who grew into the starting point guard position as the season progressed.
 
“It was a real baptism by fire,” said Dunn. “That’s a tall order for a ninth-grader. I was real proud of him. He improved a lot, he has some innate skills and ability to see things.
 
He works hard at his ball-handling and we feel good about what Martin did this year.”
 
Ray was the team’s leading free-throw shooter (75.7 percent), while averaging 5.6 points per game during league play. He was also second on the team in assists (37), behind junior Javier Salazar (41).
 
Looking ahead to next season, Dunn said there’s plenty of reasons for optimism, but practically speaking, several other teams will also return a number of underclassmen, including South Albany, Corvallis, Dallas and West Albany.

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