Antioch's Skinner dealing with bad dream of a season

If Antioch coach Mike Skinner had to use one word to describe his first year on the job, it would be "nightmare."

And the Sequoits' 1-15 record is only the half of it.

Antioch's seemingly never-ending list of injuries, ailments and other issues could keep anyone up at night.

"Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong," Skinner said. "It's been really tough."

That's for sure. Less than a month into the season, the Sequoits had already lost two players to injury. For good.

Junior guard Travis Kwielford, the team's best defender, went down in practice with a knee injury. Doctors discovered that he tore his anterior cruciate ligament and he was told that he would be out for the remainder of the season.

Soon after, freshman guard Kyle Melton, another starter, suffered a similar fate.

He broke his wrist in three places and is now forced to sit on the bench in street clothes for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, senior guard Austin Grimm missed three games after spraining his ankle, and sophomore forward John Jones and senior forward Kyle Kreutzer needed stitches in the same week.

Jones knocked his head on someone's chin while going up for a rebound in practice, and Kreutzer got hit in the mouth.

To top it all off, Lamarr Pottinger missed the first four games of the season to work off an infraction that occurred during the football season.

And to think all of this happened to the Sequoits before or during the winter break.

Happy Holidays!

"It pretty much got to the point where I didn't know what to do in practice," Skinner said. "There was like a three-week stretch where I had to step in and practice with the guys because we simply didn't have enough bodies."

Since then, Skinner has combined practices with the sophomore team.

"We usually don't practice together, but I had pulled so many guys from the sophomore team anyway that it just made sense," Skinner said. "It's actually been a great thing for us. We've been playing much better ever since we started doing that."

Skinner even found a new weapon.

Freshman guard Keenan Johnson, who was playing up on the sophomore team, turned practices with the varsity into some playing time in games.

In Antioch's last two games, he scored 13 points against Grant and 12 points against Lakes.

Opposite day: At the beginning of the school year, Antioch coach Mike Skinner attended a meeting for all the new coaches in the building.

The group did some activities to get to know each other and one involved them all making a poster.

"We had to write down all the things that we thought would make a perfect season," Skinner said. "The very first thing I wrote was 'No Injuries.'

"Guess that didn't work out too well."