ELLICOTTVILLE — The Ellicottville Eagles boys basketball team is coming off of a 14-7 season that finished with a first-round playoff loss to Chautauqua Lake.
Head coach Dave McCann returns for his 13th season with a 165-86 overall record for a team replacing three starters who graduated in 2024.
Among those graduates, the Eagles lost star Owen Chudy, who averaged 16.8 points and 12.7 rebounds per game, team highs by far.
Ellicottville has 14 players with five seniors, three sophomores and six juniors. Returning lettermen include seniors Ryan Metzger, Ryan Norton and Christopher Polino; as well as juniors Parker John and Cameron Mendell.
“Our biggest losses in graduation were to the front court,” McCann said. “We will look to some of our returners and newcomers to fill those voids.”
Key newcomers are senior Maddox Johnson, juniors Dakari Adams, Aiddan Gascon, Caleb Hurley and Camden Palmatier. And sophomores Rylan Benjamin and Dominic Polino.
Sophomore guard Blake Smith has the opportunity to take a leadership role as an underclassman. He is a returning starter that was also a CCAA East II first-team All-Star last season. Smith averaged 10.7 points per game as a freshman.
“Blake is a really good shooter when he is open,” McCann said. “He has improved a lot this year on driving to the basket, we are trying to get all of our guards to attack more and free up open shots.”
The Eagles return another guard in senior Carter Smith. Carter averaged 8 points and 5 rebounds a game last year while being an East II second-team All-Star.
“We return our guards from last season and add some more talent in the backcourt from the JV team this year,” McCann said. “Our guards have the ability to bring a lot of speed and pressure.”
The rest of the starting lineup has changed early this season and has not been decided on yet.
“We have changed it a little bit,” McCann said. “We are still trying to find the right five to get us going.”
Junior forward Parker John, sophomore center Dominic Polino and junior guard Cameron Mendell are impact players for the Eagles.
“Parker is much improved from last year, he led us in scoring the other night,” McCann said. “Mendell doesn’t necessarily score a ton, but he doesn’t need to. He is a really solid defender. Polino is a really tall, physical kid and the improvements he has made are pretty remarkable.”
The Eagles were successful in the CCAA East II going 10-2 in the league
“Our league is going to be a bit more balanced this year than it has been in the past,” McCann said. “Franklinville returns a pretty strong crew while Forestville is much improved from last year. Night in and night out we are going to get games from teams that play hard.”
Ellicottville has begun this season 3-3 with a loss to Forestville and a win against Cassadaga Valley in their first two games.
“Our first couple of games we have struggled to score a little bit,” McCann said. “That stuff is going to come around the more reps we get in practice and the more comfortable we get playing with each other.”
Defensively, Ellicottville held opponents to 45.2 points per game through five games.
“They are active,” McCann said. “At times, when we are aggressive, we can make it really hard to score on us.”
Ellicottville will be at home Thursday against Cattaraugus Little Valley at 6:30 p.m. following a close loss to rival Franklinville on Monday.
“We have a big, athletic group that has gotten better everyday in the preseason,” McCann said. “This team has a great deal of potential to be very competitive by playoff time.”
