NORTHWOOD — First-year Northwood boys basketball coach Matt Donegan has quite a task in front of him.
But the former Northwood athlete is more than willing to put in the time and effort needed to take over a
rebuilding Rangers’ program.
After coaching Northwood’s junior varsity team the past five seasons, Donegan takes over a program that
has eight varsity players and only one senior coming into this season.
“I’m really excited,” Donegan said. “Being so young, it’s going to be a challenge the first year but it’s
exciting just to have your own program. Hopefully we’ll be able to watch it grow. We’ve struggled the
last few years and hopefully we can get that turned around.”
The Rangers finished 6-14 overall and 3-8 in the Toledo Area Athletic Conference last season, finishing
ahead of only Emmanuel Christian and Maumee Valley in the league standings. Northwood lost to North
Baltimore by two points in a sectional semifinal to end its season.
After the Northwood football team qualified for the state playoffs this fall, the limited amount of time
between the fall and winter sports seasons has resulted in some players not coming out for the
basketball team, according to Donegan.
The team has one senior, three juniors, and the rest of the players are freshmen and sophomores.
“We’re rebuilding. We’ve got a lot of young guys. A lot of the older guys don’t want to play,” Donegan
said. “It’s going to be a rebuilding process. It’s definitely going to be an uphill climb.”
However, Donegan is hoping the players he does have will be able to make the transition to a new coach a
smooth one.
“We want to have that hard-working attitude,” Donegan said. “When kids buy into that and they start
working hard, our results are going to payoff and that’s what we’re hoping for.”

Northwood has three letter winners returning: senior guard Ryan Canaday (6-foot-2), junior post David
Green (6-4), and junior guard John Romstadt (5-9).
Canaday led the team, averaging 18.7 points last season while shooting 47 percent from the floor. He was
a second-team All-TAAC selection last season.
Romstadt is a good distributor of the basketball, according to his coach, and Green provides size in the
post.
“What we do have back, it may not be a lot, but it’s pretty good,” Donegan said.
Donegan also pointed to forward Zach Wielinski (6-1) as a player to make an impact this season.
The Rangers graduated a solid core of seniors from last year’s team, including 6-5 center Charles Artino
(10.6 points, 7.2 rebounds per game).
The key for Northwood, according to Donegan, will be limiting turnovers as well as improving its defense
from a season ago.
“We’ve got to take care of the ball. That’s a big one. We’re pretty cavalier with the ball,” said
Donegan, who played football, basketball and baseball at Northwood, graduating in 2003. “We’ve got to
play better defense than we did last year. We were not a very good defensive team last year.”
“That’s going to be the emphasis — getting after it on the defensive end because we have not been good at
that lately,” he added. “If we’re keeping teams to one shot per possession We’re going to be
competitive.
“We’re looking forward to the challenge.”
NORTHWOOD BOYS SCHEDULE
Dec. 4 — at North Baltimore
Dec. 11 — OTTAWA HILLS#
Dec. 15 — at Emmanuel Christian#
Dec. 18 — DANBURY#
Dec. 19 — SWANTON
Dec. 22 —LAKE
Dec. 29 — OLD FORT
Jan. 7 — at Cardinal Stritch#
Jan. 9 — at Bettsville
Jan. 15 — at Maumee Valley#
Jan. 22 — TOLEDO CHRISTIAN#
Jan. 26 — at Ottawa Hills#
Jan. 30 — EMMANUEL CHRISTIAN#
Feb. 2 — at Danbury#
Feb. 5 — at Genoa
Feb. 6 — at Gibsonburg
Feb. 9 —CARDINAL STRITCH#
Feb. 12 — MAUMEE VALLEY#
Feb. 19 — at Toledo Christian#
Feb. 22 — MONCLOVA CHRISTIAN
#—Toledo Area Athletic Conference game