By HUNTER O. LYLE
Finding the right person to pick up the torch can be a difficult task. Being the person to carry it can be even more challenging. Sometimes, however, the powers at be seem to line up seamlessly and the transition, as a result, is just as smooth.
For Andrew Terwilliger and Rob Wight, two new head coaches freshly dawning the clipboards and whistles, their first respective years at the helm proved to be just that: seamless and smooth.
At the beginning of the season, Terwilliger and Wight found their jobs starting on opposite sides of the spectrum. In Bradford, Terwilliger picked up the reins after the tenure of John Bennardi. Replacing a known and respected name, Terwilliger got to work crafting his own coaching identity, one that centered around one mantra: Play hard. Play smart. Play together.
“With my roots coming from the program as well and having good coaches, I knew where we needed to start and continue to work,” said Terwilliger, who spent last season with the Owls as an assistant coach. “That kind of laid the ground base for everything we did this year.”
As a team welcoming back the vast majority of its core, the Owls showed signs of life early. Out of the gates, Bradford cruised through their first few contests. Starting with a 20-point win over Ridgway, Terwilliger and Co. then stormed through the annual Randy Stebbins Memorial Tournament, beating Kane and Otto-Eldred by a combined 36 points to win the tournament for the first time in seven years.
Despite some stumbles as they ran into stiffer competition down the road, Bradford ended their campaign with a 10-12 record, the best final tally since 2019. Had it not been for a newly enacted 0.500 rule, put in place by Bradford’s administration staff, Terwilliger was confident they could have returned to the District 9 Class 4A postseason.
“Early on we kind of started off on a good note. We saw some things come together,” said Terwillger. “From the start to the finish, I thought our philosophy was play hard, play smart, play together and we were satisfying every one of those. It was really nice to see the kids come together like that. I thought we made huge accomplishments to be honest.”
Having gotten his feet wet with his first season under his belt, Terwilliger’s mind is already bouncing around ideas of ways to improve for next season, the main bullet point being execution. Throughout the season, several of the Owls’ games were decided in crunch time and, unfortunately for Bradford, they wound up on the wrong side of several close games, dropping multiple by just two or three points and a few which were settled in overtime.
Boasting a young roster this season – the Owls had just three seniors alongside a large crop of underclassmen – Terwilliger believes the growth simply rests on further development, in both the mentals and fundamentals.
“You always reflect on the last play but people forget about things that happened in the first quarter, second quarter. We talked about valuing the possession and time-and-score and the takeaway (from the season) was to watch yourself on film, take things from it and grow from it,” said Terwilliger. “That’s what we’ll focus on.”
Through all the peaks and valleys, Terwilligers’ own personal success from his first year rests with something away from the numbers. Having seen this current group of seniors – Landon Lohrman, Danny Marasco and his own son Marcus Terwilliger – grow throughout the years, both on and off the court, proved to be as rewarding as any check in the win column.
“That senior group has been with me since I started coaching. When I first started coaching all of them were just little guys,” said Andrew Terwilliger. “We started at the youth level and I’ve coached them every year up to this point. So that means something special to me.”
Over in Duke Center, Wight also found himself with big shoes to fill, although, ones left by a hyper-successful, flash in the pan.
Prior to Wight, the boys at Otto-Eldred were relentlessly raising the bar. Dominating both the regular season and playoffs with an overpowered roster, then-head coach Derrick Francis helped lead his squad to countless accolades and achievements, capping off his short three-year term with the Terrors’ first-ever D9 championship banner.
Then came the sudden void. Graduating eight seniors, including all five starters, O-E was tasked with replacing the talent on the court as well as the leadership on the sidelines as Francis stepped away in the offseason.
Despite stepping into a daunting situation surrounded by a whirl of question marks and a roster with very limited varsity experience, Wight’s team excelled. Deemed the ‘Next Chapter’ Terrors, O-E recently capped off their first campaign under Wight with a 15-7 overall regular season record that saw them hold a 12-4 resume in the North Tier League. On top of that, the Terrors kept their postseason streak alive with a return trip to the D9 postseason bracket.
“I think it was a good experience for everybody. Me, getting a taste for Pennsylvania basketball and not having a shot clock, and I think it was really good for those kids to get minutes in games under their belt,” said Wight, whose team was eliminated by Cameron County in the Class A quarterfinals on Wednesday. “As far as the record, I couldn’t be happier. We were in the NTL right until the end with a chance to win and I think we picked up some big wins over the season that maybe not a lot of people expected us to. All in all, I really couldn’t be happier with the season.”
While Wight is no stranger to coaching, as he is currently the head coach of the Cuba-Rushford boy’s soccer team and has had a stint with boys basketball in New York, being a part of the Keystone State’s system has been just as much of a learning experience for him as the varsity stage has been for his players. Luckily for O-E, both have taken it in stride.
“I think just the player growth (surprised me.) Coming into the year, obviously everybody knew about Jack (Sherry) from Smethport, but with the other four starters not really playing any starting minutes before, I think they’ve all really progressed in their own way,” said Wight. “Mason Rees really comes to mind. He has turned into such a sharp shooter and not only that, he’s really learned how to score the ball in more ways than one. Having maybe three career points coming into the season and now he’s averaging about eleven-and-a-half points a game, that’s a pretty big jump in his first season starting on varsity.”
Leaving the season on solid footing, Wight can see the double-edged sword of tempered expectations. Although they initially used the external doubt at the beginning of the season to their advantage, the Terrors’ surprising success developed into a bitter-sweet motivator, one that laid the groundwork for the future.
“Honestly, I think it’s just been fun. I don’t want to undersell it but I think there wasn’t a lot of pressure for anyone this year. The kids especially, they just got to go out there and play basketball and that’s been fun to experience,” said Wight. “The expectations towards the end of the year were interesting. They kind of shifted. We would have taken (losses) a month ago but because we’re frustrated, we kind of see how much we’ve grown as a team. We’ve learned that we can do this. We can compete.”
