The measure of a player’s impact on the basketball floor does not start with his height, but more so by the length of the shadow he casts.
No better example of that truism is Otselic Valley senior point guard, David Cerasani. Any witness to a Vikings game can easily approximate how valuable a component the 5-foot-7-inch guard is to the team’s success.
Bottom line, Cerasani is a winner.
He piloted OV to a Section III, Class D championship in 2007, he led his team to a Central Counties League division title in 2008, and is the unquestioned leader on a Vikings team that is contending for a second straight league title. The Vikings are 49-12 over the last three seasons, and Cerasani is on pace to lead his team in scoring a third straight season.
Speaking of scoring, the OV dynamo passed some significant landmarks over the past two months. In early-December, he joined just a handful of Otselic Valley athletes cross the 1,000-point threshold. A week ago to the day, he went a step further moving on top of the all-time scoring list.
Cerasani scored 13 points in a blowout win over McGraw to give him 1,170 for his career. He supplanted Doug Caldwell’s mark of 1,163 set in the mid-’90s, and Cerasani is this week’s Smith-Ford LLC/Evening Sun Athlete of the Week.
“I’ve had a lot of great kids to work with over the years, and David is certainly on that list. He’s been a pleasure to have,” said OV longtime coach Dave Loomis. “The example he sets in practice and in games are probably his biggest contributions. You’ll never see him complain about a call or something that doesn’t go his way. He just plays hard every minute.”
And when it comes to practice: “You’ll never see him miss a practice. I don’t think he’d miss a practice, even if he was in the hospital,” Loomis said.
