By SPENCER BATES
OLEAN — Resilience was the name of the game for the Salamanca boys basketball team as it claimed a win in its season-opener over Olean in dramatic fashion.
The early stages of the Warriors’ season has been muddled with chaos. All of their early-season non-league games were either cancelled or postponed due to the extended run of the football team and the weather made sure to throw a number of speed bumps in the way as well.
So, entering their first game of the season, a CCAA West I league game against the reigning Section 6 Class A2 champion Huskies, there were a lot of questions still yet to be answered.
But Salamanca found a way.
Battling back from a 10-point deficit early in the second half, the reigning Section 6 Class B champions and NYS semifinalists, mounted a defense-inspired comeback that saw a 52-51 result fall their way.
“We can’t control anything other than how hard we play and how we manage our guys and their bodies,” Salamanca coach Adam Bennett said. “I mean, we’ve had seven practices. We had a game get canceled, … after school activities canceled one day, our football team goes on an amazing run, but these are championship level athletes, and I think that’s what you saw tonight.”
Salamanca’s Avery Brown (20) drives into the lane against Olean’s Luca Quinn (11). Brown finished with a game-high 22 points in the Warriors’ win. (Salamanca Warrior Athletics)
One of the biggest questions surrounding this year’s Salamanca team was how it was going to fill the hole that Lucus Brown, the all-time leading points scorer in the history of Salamanca basketball, left after he graduated.
Against Olean, Salamanca showed that where they intend to make up that ground is on the defensive end.
“We got a lot of guys that can defend,” Bennett said. “We feel like we can go 1 through 5. We can switch everything, we’re really versatile. We don’t even have half of our stuff in yet. We just relied on the fundamentals of what we do and how we’ve been built. … Jaxon (Crouse) had a tremendous game on that side of the floor, and we got stops when we needed them. … These guys relish that opportunity. It’s not, ‘let’s out-score the other team.’ It’s ‘let’s get more stops.’”
And, luckily for the Warriors, the physicality and dedication in the paint led to them having a great deal of success on the offensive end of the floor as they did not record a single 3-pointer on the night. Instead, they found all of their success from inside the arc.
Salamanca’s Cory Holleran (24) is chased down by Olean’s Caedyn Tingley (23). (Salamanca Warrior Athletics)
Avery Brown led the way in terms of physicality for Salamanca and truly caught fire in the second half, scoring 14 of his game-high 22 points in that time.
“Really, all of our guys (have the) ability to attack,” Bennett said. “The mid-range game (and) the ability to get to the basket. The thing that I loved most was the confidence. … I’m incredibly proud of how mentally tough we were. We withstood some early punches, we didn’t try to get it all back early in the second half, we did it possession-by-possession, defensively. But Avery specifically, when he plays with confidence, he is tough. He’s a three-level scorer, but we got a lot of guys like that. Cory (Holleran), Jake (Herrick), Crouse, Maddox (Isaac), you name it, they can all play in their own right. My favorite thing is how they play together.”
Salamanca’s unity and commitment to one another on the court showed explicitly almost immediately after halftime, which it entered trailing by eight points.
The Warriors out-scored Olean 12-5 in the third quarter and continued the trend into the fourth. In the midst of an 18-3 run, stretching between quarters, they took a 39-38 lead, their first of the game since it was 4-3 in the opening minutes.
And thanks to a just-about-last-second steal from Holleran, Salamanca staved off its hosts for a dramatic win on the road.
Salamanca’s Isaac rises up for a fast-break layup. (Salamanca Warrior Athletics)
Olean coach Tim Kolasinski gave Salamanca its flowers with how well they defended and how that played a role in disrupting the flow they had going early on offense. And despite the loss, he credited his players with having the resolve to stay in the fight and give themselves a chance to win it at the end despite a rough second-half.
“(Salamanca) was really aggressive in their zone and it really kind of took us out of our flow,” Kolasinski said. “I think we rushed some shots, and that’s how we ended up in the situation we were in. Obviously, I was proud of the guys. For them to keep battling, that’s what we kept talking about when we came to the huddle. ‘It’s still only four points, it’s still only five points, it seemed like more, but get back in it.’ The guys really felt like we had a good chance to go win it and so did we … (but) you got to get a shot in that situation.”
However much of a role the second-half lapses played in the loss, Kolasinski is far from hitting the panic button. It is still plenty early in the year and he is, frankly, very pleased with the improvement he’s seen in practice, giving him a positive outlook for the future. One in which the wrinkles he saw against Salamanca are ironed out.
“We see things at practice every day that we think are getting better and better,” Kolasinski said. “The one thing, and I think a lot of coaches would agree with this, it’s just really hard to imitate the pressure of another team, even if you know what they’re doing. … There’s a difference between knowing it and having to go against it. So, that’s a lesson for our guys to learn.”
Of those guys, Kolasinski will be looking towards Caedyn Tingley, Luca Quinn and Mykel Rivera, among others, to take that message and add it to the collection that they learned from their experiences on the team last year.
The trio provided the Huskies with a great deal of offense and were a bright spot in the loss, recording 15, 13 and 11 points respectively.
“One of the things that we really talked about this summer and then to begin the season was those guys finished last year on a really high note,” Kolasinski said. “However, the way sports work is you don’t pick up where you left off, you got to start all over again. And those guys obviously are going to be a core of what we’re doing, and we need them to remember the lessons that they learned last year, and not have to learn them again. They, obviously, kept battling and helped keep us in the game and gave us a chance.”
Olan’s Luca Quinn (11) looks to get around Salamanca’s Cory Holleran (24). Quinn finished with 13 points for the Huskies in their loss. (Salamanca Warrior Athletics)
AT OLEAN
Salamanca (52)
Brown 10 2-2 22, Isaac 4 4-5 12, Herrick 4 0-0 8, Bradley 3 0-0 6, Holleran 1 0-0 2, Crouse 1 0-0 2. Totals: 23 6-7 52
Olean (51)
Tingley 6 1-2 15, Quinn 5 0-0 13, Rivera 5 0-0 11, Mest 3 0-0 6, Teachman 2 0-0 4, Giovine 1 0-0 2. Totals: 22 1-2 51
Sala. 10 25 37 52
Olean 14 33 38 51
Three-point goals: Sala. 0, Olean 6 (Quinn 3, Tingley 2, Rivera); Total fouls: Sala. 11, Olean 17; fouled out: None.
JV: Olean won.
