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.
Cerasani has rounded out his game to become not only a great offensive threat, but an excellent distributor of the ball and improved defender. While leading the Vikings to a win over Brookfield last week, he shared scoring honors netting 23 points, but also dished out 12 assists and pocketed 10 steals – his first-ever triple-double, and the first at OV in recent annals.
“He has the ability to penetrate defenses and has great vision and court awareness,” Loomis said.
Bill Hartman, the varsity boys’ basketball coach at G-MU, has had a first-hand look at Cerasani since the OV player’s seventh-grade year beginning with summer AAU ball, and later in varsity basketball games over the past three seasons.
Cerasani has averaged over 17 points per game against G-MU the past three seasons, and he has a chance to add to those numbers next week when the Raiders entertain the Vikings.
“He has a real nice intuition for the game,” Hartman said. “He sees the floor and is not emotional or demonstrative. He’s like that quiet killer. You look at the scorebook at the end of the game, and you say, ‘wow, he scored that many points?’”
Hartman has seen Cerasani’s development over the past six years, and it is no surprise to him why OV has maintained a high level of play over the past four seasons. “You watch any kid involved in AAU basketball, and it’s easy to pick those guys out on this level – they stand out,” he said. “Not only has (David) benefited from that experience, but he’s elevated the program at Otselic Valley. I may be mistaken, but along the way, he’s been able to drag a couple other kids from Otselic Valley into spring ball. That’s a testament to the desire and impact he has on the basketball program.”

Editor’s note: Cerasani scored a career-high 32 points in the Thursday, Jan. 29 win over George Jr. Republic. Statistics from that game were not included in this article.