One of the reasons covering HS athletics is a challenge is because player transfers don’t attract news. Most of the time, you don’t hear of a transfer until a kid shows up for school in early September. I mean, this isn’t college, where player transfers — like Oregon hoopster Drew Viney — commands the front page (unless you're Charles Siddoway, and you've run afoul of the OSAA). Thurston baseball coach Phil Dube had an interesting quote in the Guard earlier in the season saying that he didn’t know Darrell Hunter — a future MWL MVP and University of Oregon recruit coming off a great season with Churchill — was transfering back to Thurston until the first day of school, when Hunter showed up on his roll sheet in class. If the coaches don't always know about player movement... well, you can take a guess at how hard it is for the rest of us.

But with news hitting the OregonLive forums last month — and confirmed with the school — of Willamette forward LeRon Bennett transfering to Churchill, it looks like, for once, the cat was let out of the bag with a little time to digest the news.

Bennett, a 6-3 senior-to-be, was a second team MWL selection last season at Willamette, the Wolverine’s top scorer and one of the best slashing forwards in the area. In some early 2008-09 MWL hoops predictions I drew up not long ago,  I spoke of Willamette challenging for the third and final playoff spot with Bennett in the fold — forget that. It’s not happening, not now.

Bennett joins my preseason league MVP choice, PG Jordan Myers, and P Brendan Means, a talented big man I had pegged for the MWL first team, on a loaded Churchill team. I had Bennett on that preseason first team list, too. In a league where the other contenders lost division one hoopsters to graduation (North Eugene, Brian Conklin — St. Louis; Thurston, Drew Wiley — Oregon), Churchill, perhaps, returns the best guard, forward, and post in the league.

Things like this are why preseason rankings as early I did mine are simply for fun; I’ll certainly re-forecast the league later on, closer to the season, because I’m sure Bennett won’t be the only significant transfer. But for kicks, I’d probably put Springfield in that fourth place spot ahead of Willamette, now — Church and Travess are a nice 1-2 scoring punch.

Churchill obviously won’t change from the #1 spot I gave them, but they should rise in the statewide rankings once those start coming out in November. Defending 5A state champion Jefferson will be the clear-cut preseason #1, but Churchill probably warrants top 3 consideration upon the Bennett transfer. Consider last season's Top 8 (quarterfinals):

#1 Jefferson. They may not lose a game, unless they run into a nationally elite team in the LSI. They're the best team in the state, regardless of classification.

#2 Corvallis. They lose their entire starting five, don't they? Just about, anyway.

#3 Thurston. Lost four starters, including two 1st team-MWL players

#4 Hermiston. Should win the IMC -- but will they be an elite team?

#5 Sherwood. Lost a ton.

#6 North Eugene. Lost their "Big 3" -- Conklin, Baker, Laird.

#7 Century. Tapscott, 5A's leading scorer last year, graduates. At least McCaffrey comes back.

#8 Mountain View. So long, Sean Dart.

There's plenty of room for Churchill to move up, eh?