Last winter, two games changed the basketball fortune of South River senior Eric Sondberg. Sondberg scored 31 points against Meade in late January, and two weeks later, totaled 21 versus Largo. He showed off his sweet shooting stroke—perhaps the best in the county.
Those performances naturally caught the attention of opposing coaches from Meade and Largo, who also work for Team Durant, one of the top AAU summer programs in the country. That earned him a tryout with Team Durant in March and he ended up making the squad.
“They knew I was a good shooter and they were looking for a shooter they could rely on,” Sondberg says.
Sondberg, a 6-foot-6-inch guard/forward, couldn’t say no to U-17 Team Durant, a squad sponsored by Nike and funded by the foundation of NBA star Kevin Durant.
The Davidsonville resident played for another AAU basketball team, the South River Shooters, in previous summers and he hated to leave after five years.
“I just planned on playing for my hometown team,” Sondberg says. “It was all really kind of shocking. It was a hard decision for me to leave that team.”
Team Durant appealed to Sondberg for several reasons. Sondberg competed in tournaments in Atlanta, Dallas, Fisher, Indiana, and, finally, the championship round in Augusta, Georgia, against teams with nationally-ranked players. How good was Team Durant? Every player has committed to a Division I basketball school.
“He was playing in front of hundreds of college coaches,” South River Boys Basketball Coach Darren Hall says. “Playing on the national stage really got him exposure. It was maximum exposure and went a long way toward getting him a scholarship.”
The 18-year-old Sondberg received a basketball scholarship to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He committed to the school in July and will sign a National Letter of Intent in mid-November. Army and Furman also aggressively recruited Sondberg.
“Everything happened very quickly,” says Sondberg, who carries a weighted 4.17 grade-point average and is interested in majoring in economics. “It was kind of overwhelming at first. It turned out to be a blessing.”
Team Durant Coach Osman Dangura says Sondberg’s perimeter play was crucial to his squad’s success. “We had a bunch of guys who could attack the basket and get into the paint,” Dangura explains. “That forced the defense to collapse. The players would kick the ball out to Eric and he knocked down a shot. He did it a lot.”
Spending three months with Team Durant clearly elevated Sondberg’s game. “I am more physical and I am playing at a quicker pace,” Sondberg says. “I had to improve my defense. It was definitely a weakness. It definitely has gotten a lot better.”
Sondberg also made big strides between his sophomore and junior year at South River. He contributed 13 points per game during the 2017–18 season, his first on the varsity. Sondberg then quickly blossomed and averaged 22 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3.1 steals, and 2.6 assists. He had some memorable games against C Milton Wright (35 points), Southern (32), and Annapolis (30).
“He is probably known around the county as a three-point shooter, but he can score in many different ways,” Hall says. “We really challenged him at midseason to score inside and he did that a lot.”
Hall is eager to see what kind of statistics Sondberg can put up this winter after ranking second in the county in scoring last season to Meade’s Malzi Thames. “I really think he is going to have a bigger year,” the coach says. “I just think he is a lot more confident after playing for Team Durant and he learned a lot.”
