By HUNTER O. LYLE
lyleoleanstar@gmail.com
DUKE CENTER, PA – As the baskets descend from the rafters of Otto-Eldred’s Terror Dome ahead of the ensuing basketball season, they leave the company of a newly-made acquaintance: the 2024-2025 District 9 Championship banner.
Hanging as a hard-earned and long sought after reward, one that in its pursuit produced the winningest class in school history, the coveted cloth now stands as the last remaining mark of the team that brought it home.
Last year’s campaign was the swan song for the Terrors’ elite senior class. After years of constant domination, which included continuous North Tier League titles as well as appearances in the D9 and Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state playoffs, O-E lost eight seniors, including all five starters, three of which ended with over 1,000 career points – Landon Francis, the Terrors’ All-Time leading scorer, Manning Splain and Shene Thomas. Along with the players on the court, this offseason the Terrors also lost both their men at the drawing board, coaches Derrick Francis and Lance Baker.
In walks Rob Wright.
Arriving by way of Cuba-Rushford, Wright has headed the Rebel’s boy’s soccer team for the past three years, also taking over for a number of games as an interim head coach for the basketball team. As he enters his first full-time head coaching position with the Terrors, and while it’s hard to ignore the void left during the offseason, Wright has already seen the culture and mentality that has been engrained in his players.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the kids who have come and gone. We lost over 4,500 career points which will be difficult (to replace,) but the kids I have now are basketball players. I think one of the big things, when you have a team with as much success as Otto-Eldred has over the last few years, it really develops a culture,” said Wright. “These kids that I have now have been guarding the Landon Frances’s, the Shene Thomas’s, the Mannings Splains. These kids were guarding them in practice, pushing them to be better, gameplanning, scout teaming, scrimmaging them, so these kids have experience as basketball players. They’ve seen it first hand and they know what it takes to win. So I’m very excited.”
Stepping up as starters this year are Mason Schenfield, Michael Sheeler and Mason Rees, all juniors who have found contributing minutes off the bench in prior years. Along with the home grown, which includes six newcomers to the team, O-E also welcomes Jack Sherry, a junior and transfer from Smethport who helped lead the Hubbers as a starter with 14.5 points a game. With their numbers in mind, O-E’s gameplan will be to score via committee, filling the stat sheet across the board rather than having the luxury of relying on their four-headed hydra of the past.
“I think we have a lot of balance this year. We’ve got seven or eight guys that can go out on any given night and give you double digits. We have guys that can score from the outside, guys that can score on the inside, a couple guys that can do both,” said Wright. “I think that’ll be our biggest strength. We’ve got a lot of depth and a lot of balance.”
Despite all the confidence and moldable talent at his disposal, Wright knows that the Terrors will have to build from the ground up.
“I think this year it’s really realistic that we can contend again for the North Tier League title. It’s a different group this year but I still think we can compete for the NTL Championship and I’d love to see us make a deep run in the District 9 playoffs. Then, a great goal that’s a little more lofty is qualifying for the state tournament, but then we’d have to finish in the top three or four in the district,” said Wright. “I think that’s realistic. We’d love to be 0.500, I’d say that’s goal number one. Goal number would be an NTL championship and goal three would be a deep run in districts to qualify for the state tournament.”
Otto-Eldred opens their season with a league-match, traveling to Ulysses, PA to face Northern Potter on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m.
However, one team’s misery is another team’s fortune. Right down the road, Port Allegany is finally seeing a window opening.
All the while Otto-Eldred has had an iron grip on the NTL, the Gators have been forced to look up at the Blue and Gold ceiling from below, typically hovering around the third seed in the league below O-E and Cameron County. Now, as both the Terrors and Red Raiders take a step back – CC lost some veteran players, notably Ryan Shaffer and Landon Farren – Port’s core is as primed as ever to make a run for the title.
“I think if we take care of business and play up to our potential, we could be battling for that top spot in the league at the end of the year,” said Port Allegany head coach Kyle Babcock, who also gave consideration to Coudersport. “I think we have to start off the season strong. We have a tough tournament to kick off the season down in Clarion. It’s our first year in that tournament and I think we have to come out early and win some non-league games and set the tone early with that.”
Finishing the 2024-2025 season at 13-11, the Gators earned a spot in the D9 playoffs for the third year in a row. Their efforts were led by a trifecta of juniors, Isac Amell, Jarrod Funk and Nick Wilfong, who all averaged double-digit points and all return to the Gators for their senior season. While Wilfong will be sidelined early with an injury sustained during the recent football postseason, Babcock expects his counterparts to lead the charge.
“Jarrod Funk (is our leader). That name has been around for a couple years. He’s like 6’5 now and you’d think a guy at 6’5 strictly plays the paint but he handles the ball as well as any guard I have. He can play inside, outside, he’s a good shooter, he takes care of the ball. We’re really looking for him. He played well last year but I think this year should really be his breakout year,” said Babcock. “Isac Amell is also a name you’re going to hear this year. He’s a senior, started last year. He’s probably 6’1, 6’2 now and just very athletic. What I’ve been seeing from him these first two practices, I expect a big year out of him as well.”
Port will open their season on the road, taking on Otto-Eldred on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Similar to the Gators, Smethport’s postseason streak also grew last season, however, in the opposite direction. Finishing the regular season at 3-19, the Hubbers missed the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
As Paul Picolli enters his second year as Smethport’s coach, he does so with almost the entirety of last year’s team to build upon. Losing no seniors, he welcomes back four of his starting juniors back to the roster of 14 total players. Working with the same lineups, Picolli and Co. believe the wins will start to come from within the locker room.
“It’d be great to get to the playoffs, it’d be great if we could get some more victories. My hope is this: we continue to grow from last year, we get some more wins under our belt by improving our basketball play on both ends of the floor,” said Picolli. “We did some good things in the summer, so we learned how to maybe win some games. The whole culture has to be changed towards winning, because we haven’t won many games in the last few years, so we’re trying to get over that hurdle of learning how to win.”
The Hubbers open their season on Tuesday, Dec. 2 with a road game against Kane at 7:30 p.m.
In the newly formed District 9 League, Bradford is also looking to lay the foundation for a new culture.
After over a decade of the John Bennardi era, the Owls have a new man at the helm, Andrew Terwilliger. Spending last season as an assistant coach, Terwilliger takes over as Bradford looks to return to the D9 championship after a two-year hiatus. Making the finals in 2023-2024 season, the Owls finished their follow-up campaign at 6-15, a year which saw a strong start quickly snowball into a six-game losing streak and beyond.
Only losing two seniors in the offseason, Bradford welcomes back the vast majority of their core. Along with the youth they gained – having over 40 kids try out for the team – they return their senior duo of Marcus Terwilliger and Danny Marasco, a frontcourt pairing that the Owls will look to to replace the leadership void.
“(Being a leader) is a big challenge to take on, obviously, but we just have to keep our composure, understand the game and guide the younger guys,” said Marcus Terwilliger. “We’ve been through it, we know what it’s like. You get the crowd going and you lose a little bit of train of thought but that’s where composure comes in.”
With their roster restocked with experience towards the top, the Owls’ have the fuel for their 2025-2026 campaign. The important thing for Bradford now, is finding their direction.
“Having our culture and our philosophy is very important to us. Playing hard, playing smart, playing together, it’s important to strive for those things,” said Andrew Terwilliger. “The goal every day is not to come in and run through the motions, it’s to get better. Every practice we have to stride towards that, whether it’s working on our defense or an offensive set, we have to get better. That’s what I’m striving for the team to look forward to.”
The Owls’ first matchup is at home on Wednesday, Dec. 13 when they host Ridgway. That game is slated for a 7:15 p.m. start.
