With five starters from BCS this is no exhibition game for the Manatee County boys basketball team
SARASOTA -- Don't expect the Manatee County vs. Sarasota County basketball game to resemble the NBA All-Star game, where nobody plays defense and players showboat.
"We talked about it. Manatee County is playing to win," said Bradenton Christian head coach Scott Townsend, an assistant for the boys team under Jeremy Schiller, head coach at Lakewood Ranch.
The event, under the Kyle Jutras Scholarship Foundation banner, will pit some of the area's top seniors in a game that used to be an annual affair sponsored by the Manatee PAL.
The girls game will tip off at 3:30 p.m. and the boys game will start at around 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Sarasota HIgh.
Braden River head coach Kristen Fulmer, the Lakewood Ranch girls career scoring leader, will coach the Manatee County girls.
The Manatee County boys team will look a lot like Bradenton Christian, with the five starters who led the Panthers to the Class 2A state championship game.
The quintet is led by Ryan Leunk, who averaged 21 points per game and finished the season as the Panthers' second-ranked career scoring leader with 1,654 points. He will be joined by J.T. Noellert, Vince Rehfeldt, Jake Lister and Alex Telfair.
Corey Davis, who was not allowed to play in the postseason for undisclosed reasons, will be Southeast's only representative. He led the Seminoles in rebounding (5.8 rpg) and was their second-leading scorer (14.1 ppg).
The other players listed to play for Manatee County are Kyle Edwards and Keiwon Jackson from Palmetto, and Parker Golemo (Braden River) and Anthony Suarez from Lakewood Ranch.
"They definitely want to win. They all said the biggest thing they want to get out of this is that they want to beat Sarasota County," Townsend said. "They are very competitive. It's kind of neat because they've all been playing and battling each other the last four years and now they get to play with each other and have fun with it."
In the girls game, Southeast is expected to be represented by Breyonna Reed, Johnelle Clark and Bree Thomas.
Lakewood Ranch, which reached the Class 7A state title game, will be represented by Elise Spiller. Braden River has Taylor Ide, Larissa LaBolt and Deja Palmer, and BCS contributes Carly Carbary.
"The goal of the girls' game is to have fun, but I would love to win," Fulmer said. "It's nice to get the seniors together one more time on the court. I am excited to see this game played again. When I played it was run by PAL and it used to be a huge. I played in the game at Booker and we packed the gym. Coach Jutras is trying to bring the game back (annually)."
The most outstanding player of the game for the girls and boys will receive a $500 college scholarship in the name of Kyle Jutras, son of Sarasota High girls head coach Rob Jutras, who will coach the Sarasota County girls team.
Kyle Jutras, a popular teacher and JV basketball coach at Sarasota High and former Venice High player, passed away in September 2014 at 24 due to a rare form of cancer.
The players from Riverview, which made it to the Class 8A title game, are DJ Bryant, Dominic Caldwell, Micah Fenn and Myron Wright. Cardinal Mooney's representative is Nick Peacock. The Sarasota County boys will be coached by Riverview head coach B.J. Ivey.
The Sarasota County girls team includes Booker's Yamaris Guevarez, who missed all of her senior year because of a knee injury, but signed with Division I Jacksonville University, and Cardinal Mooney's Emily Walser, a Bradenton Herald All-Area first team selection last season.
Alan Dell, Herald sports columnist/writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports
This story was originally published March 26, 2016 at 12:02 AM with the headline "With five starters from BCS this is no exhibition game for the Manatee County boys basketball team ."