By HUNTER O. LYLE
In high school football, consistency only goes so far. Rosters fluctuate, coaching staffs roll over and success ebbs and flows. What stays the same, and what four football teams around the area are focusing on this season, is the constant effort to roll with the punches and utilize the players in front of them.
The largest amount of holes to fill come from the Porville/Cuba-Rushford/Bolivar-Richburg co-op, who are looking to fill gaps in mass.
Coming off of a 5-4 season, the Panthers’ success was propelled by a massive crop of seniors, a class 20 strong that accounted for over 2,800 all-purpose yards. At the tip of the spear was Jake Ziegler, the main piston for the Maroon and White who ran for 1,220 yards and 17 of the Panthers’ 27 rushing touchdowns. Alongside him, Portville will also be looking to replace their star receivers Kingston Loucks (316 receiving yards, five touchdowns) and Adam Roe (288 yards, four touchdowns), as well as Aidan DeFazio, the graduating quarterback who threw for 741 yards and eight touchdowns.
“We kind of preach as a program, it’s the next guy up mentality. Really, we were staring down that same situation the past two years prior to that, ” said Portville/Cuba-Rushford/Bolivar-Richburg head coach Josh Brooks, noting how Ziegler filled the shoes left behind from Max DeYoe a year prior. “These younger kids have seen that and we do have some kids that are itching (to find a way to make an impact.)”
While the Panthers opened the camp looking at the voids to fill, they had a surplus of options to pull from, returning 30 players with varsity experience to their ranks.
Coming back for his senior season, Peyton Carter will facilitate the offense at quarterback, taking notes from his role as QB2 which produced 197 passing yards and four touchdowns and while the backfield in experiment flux, their work will be fostered by the trio of veteran men in the trenches, James Aksey, Logan Englehardt and Wyatt Tyler.
After a season that had its ebbs and flows, Brooks’ main message to the team through training camp was coming out hot. Finding their footing early and shaking off any nerves before C-South league play, which begins in Week Four against Fredonia. Part of coming out strong is building momentum off big moments, for instance, beating a next door neighbor.
For the first time in program history, the Panthers will finally have a showdown with Olean thanks to changes made by the Section VI governing body. That clash of local communities will go down in Week Three on Friday Sept. 18, a game that Brooks has circled on his calendar.
“I think it’s going to be really cool. There’s going to be a ton of people, from the Olean area of course, but also from Portville, Bolivar-Richburg, Cuba. We have a wonderful following and a ton of support,” said Brooks. “It’s going to be awesome. What a cool environment to play at Bradner Stadium.”
In the meantime, Portville’s soon-to-be opponents are busy in the lab, designing a way to replace not only their star-studded seniors, but also their head coach.
After a decade under the leadership of Phil Vecchio, the Huskies have a new man at the mantle in Terry Burrows. While Burrows hasn’t been the starring role on Olean’s sidelines, he’s spent an ample amount of time alongside them.
“I’ve been with the Olean program. I was an assistant coach with Mike Kane and then all through Phil Vecchio’s tenure, so I’ve been with the program for probably 20 years, in a variety of roles,” said Burrows. “It’s a little different (being head coach,) a lot more responsibilities. I’ve worked on the offensive side of the ball and being on the defensive side of the ball the past few years as the coordinator, I feel like I’ve got a general good feel about everything that we’re trying to do.”
Now holding the keys in hand, as well as the clipboard and whistle, Burrows is tasked with renovating the Huskies, a team that graduated their long-tenured talent. That recently departed group includes Olean’s four-year quarterback Joe Mest (1,226 passing yards, 11 touchdowns last year), their brute force running back Domonick Hirliman (643 yards, 10 touchdowns), as well as over 700 other all-purpose yards.
While the offense will feature a mixed cast of new and familiar faces, such as Dom Myers, who came away with 330 combined yards and a pair of touchdowns during his freshman season, the Huskies’ true veteran leadership comes from the opposite side of the ball.
Returning to the defense alongside Myers, who also came away with 44 solo tackles and 61 total tackles in the secondary – both second highest on the team – is junior and defensive end Colby Booth (42 solo and 67 total) and linebacker Owen Tingley (37 solo, 56 total), a senior.
Mixing their youth with experience and athleticism, Burrows and Co. are ready for the task at hand.
“If I had to characterize our team, we have some athletes who are young. It’s how quickly do they pick up to the speed of the game, competing at varsity level,” said Burrows. “Potential is a dangerous word. We’ve got potential. We’ve got dangerous guys. We have a chance to surprise some people. I’m not sure a lot of people are expecting much from us. I guess we just have to show up and show them that we think we’ve got something”
Olean opens their season this Friday at home against Pioneer at 7 p.m.
Two years removed from their New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) Championship appearance, Salamanca is still looking to get their legs under them, seeing another large turnover in the roster.
Taking to the gridiron after the first big personnel change, the Warriors came out to a hot 4-0 start in 2025. However, they then ran into trouble, ending the season 1-4 with a first round exit in the Class C playoffs. Their efforts were made possible in large part by a class of 12 seniors, a group that included their Big 30 All-Star quarterback Payton Bradley, who threw for 1,057 yards and rushed for 465 for a combined total of 20 touchdowns, receiver Waylon Dowdy, who picked up a team-high 324 receiving yards and four touchdowns and back Jesse Hill, who ran for 234 yards and one touchdown.
“When you have an explosive team that can score at any time, like we’ve had in the past, there’s a certain mentality of ‘it doesn’t matter what happens, we’re going to figure it out.’ And we made mistakes then, but we could cover them up because we were really talented. Last year, some of those mistakes started to show themselves,” said Salamanca head coach Chad Bartoszek. “I think, coming into this year, we’re changing a bit of our mindset of who we are.”
Despite the losses, Salamanca returns some solid pieces to build around. Rookie quarterback Jayden Romero, who played the position last year as a part of the junior varsity squad, will have experienced targets down range in Cameron Bowser (junior, 319 receiving yards, four touchdowns) and Remy Follman (junior, 123 receiving yards) and Conner Seeley (549 rushing yards, four touchdowns) to hand the ball off to in the backfield.
Salamanca opens their season on Friday against Springville at home. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.
While the Panthers, Huskies and Warriors are resorting to youth, Allegany-Limestone/Hinsdale is seeing the seeds planted last year start to bud.
Following a brief two-year stint in eight-on-eight play, the Gators returned to the big stage last season, taking their place in the eleven-man Section VI Class D pool. Running into a steep learning curve, the results were stark but educational.
“Every kid on our roster last year, whether they were a senior or a sophomore, that was their first opportunity playing varsity eleven-man football. We kind of expected to take our lumps last year,” said Allegany-Limestone head coach Marcus Grove, whose team finished 0-9. “The biggest thing for us last year was improving week by week, trying to get better week by week,” said Grove. “I feel that the majority of our guys bought into that message and understood that, while the record kind of stunk, all we were trying to do was get better week by week.”
As the Gators look to raise their watermark, they do so with the majority of last year’s core. Returning the lion’s share of offense, A-L will see sophomore Tayden Margeson (585 yards, two touchdowns) back under center, receivers Ryan Callen (371 rushing yards, one touchdown) and Greg Peck (277 yards, one touchdown) down range and Aidan Coulter (320 rushing yards) in the back field.
Returning under their home lights this Friday against Cardinal O’Hara, the Gators are ready and prepared to weather the storm. With that being said, the main goal once again this season is internal.
“Our messaging all off season has been, ‘we know how to lose, now let’s go learn how to win.’ I think that kind of speaks to how all the guys are carrying themselves. You can see more of a collective buy in this year,” said Grove. “For us, it’s really trying to build confidence in our guys and having them understand that they can go out and do this. They’ve put in the work all offseason to go out and make something special happen.”
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