Akron "Small town" basketball, aiming for NYS Title

Akron High boys head basketball coach Justin Gerstung said he doesn’t have his team shout “Family!” coming out of team huddles, like a lot of teams. Family is too personal, too messy. It would seem presumptuous to assume that sort of relationship.

But Akron does seem to be getting there. The Tigers have a palpable bond, one born out of shared striving and consistent success. Last Thursday, in a first-round game at the Jack Silvernail Classic, Gerstung looked at his team during a timeout and told them it was hard to believe he might love them more than last year’s squad.

Four of last year’s players were sitting behind the Akron bench, cheering their former teammates on. The bond remains strong. The 2024-25 Tigers won 23 games, a school record, winning the first sectional title in 15 years and becoming the first Akron squad ever to advance to a Far West Regional.

That was a special team, but this year’s is better, more experienced and tightly knit, and capable of going a step farther this season and perhaps making a run all the way to a New York State Class B championship.

“They play for each other, they like each other, they hang out with each other, they get their homework done together,” Gerstung said after the Tigers blew out Starpoint, 79-36, in the opening round of the Silvernail Classic at Akron.

Akron beat Pembroke, 69-47, in Friday’s title game, moving to 7-0 on the season and 30-2 going back to the start of last season. The Tigers are the top-rated small school in Section VI, third in the state poll, and favored to win another “B” sectional championship and make another run at a state title.

The Tigers are a pleasure to watch, a well-coached team that carves up opponents with a lethal high-post offense and likes to run at any opportunity off its swarming defense. They average 76 points a game and their average margin of victory is 30.3 points. They’re shooting a gaudy 56 percent from the field.

All but one of Akron’s wins have been by more than 20 points. They won by 13 against Albion, avenging their only regular-season loss from a year ago. You might think it would become tiresome to win so handily, but the Tigers have an evident joy in performing to their own lofty hoop standard.

“One thing my coaches have taught us over the years, building this team, is to never drop to the level of the other team,” said senior Ben Gerstung, son of the head coach. “We kind of set the standard, come out hot, and continue it through the whole game. So we focus on strong starts, getting our offense moving, and then having to slow it down if you’re getting rushed.” Of course, they always have the memory of last March 14 to drive them. That day, Akron lost, 58-46, to World of Inquiry in the Far West Regional at Gates-Chili, getting bumped one game from the state semifinals. Justin Gerstung says going to states would be a dream. He has watched video of that loss several times and lamented how a play here or there could have made a difference.

“God, it’s never been done for our school,” said Gerstung, who played point guard for Akron and has been coaching there for 25 years, 20 as head man. “To get to states would be crazy. To play a Marcellus (defending state B champ), which is loaded again. We played some of those guys in summer in AAU. I don’t know how good any of those teams are, but as Coach (assistant Jeff) Diebel says, go 1-0 every day, like the Bills’ mantra.”

It’s hard not to like a sectional champ that returns its three top players. Ben Gerstung, a 6-4 wing, averages 15.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5 assists. Senior and first cousin Blake Gerstung is averaging 20 points and 3 steals a game, while sinking 41 percent of his three-pointers. Derren Brooks, a 6-7 junior, is the best pure big man in Western New York, averaging 20.6 points (on 66 percent shooting from the field), 14,.4 rebounds and 2.7 blocks.

Photo Courtesy of Gretchen Doktor/Akron Tigers

Brooks has lost 70 pounds since his sophomore season, and he’s quicker on his feet. He has terrific hands and great vision for a big man. He catches passes in traffic outside the foul line and finds teammates along the baseline or open from the three-point arc. It allows Akron to play a lethal inside-out offense that is a nightmare for opposing high school defense to stop.

“That was always my game growing up,” said Brooks, who is Native American. “I always knew where to play. I played with my uncles all the time and they taught me to play inside. They played at Akron, too.”

Basketball truly is a family affair at Akron. Gerstung’s brother, Eric (Blake’s dad), is his assistant and junior varsity coach. Diebel, his long-time aide, is the son-in-law of Jack Silvernail, the Akron coaching legend for whom last week’s tournament was named. Silvernail, who coached the Tigers for 20 years, died of cancer in 2010. Justin’s daughters play on the Akron girls team. Abby, a sophomore, was Niagara-Orleans all-league as a freshman. Noelle, an eighth-grader, is on the girls’ varsity at Akron. Emma, his eldest, played basketball for the Tigers and is now a college sophomore at Canisius.

Justin’s wife, Rochelle, worked the concession stand at the tournament. She was an accomplished runner in her day and Ben says she’s the best athlete in the family. Oh, Justin’s father has been keeping the scorebook for Akron games for more than 25 years.

“We’re a pretty tight-knit family of six,” Justin said . “My extended family — my mom, my aunt, uncle and cousins — all sit in the section opposite the bench. It is a family affair, but it takes a lot for me to call you family.”

“It’s pretty awesome,” Rochelle said. “I’m very proud of Ben, proud of his dad. It’s pretty incredible what they are doing together as a team. The Gerstung family lives and breathes basketball. They always joke that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I know a tiny touch now, right?”

Rochelle got choked up talking about how quickly the time goes. You blink and your son is a senior, along with his first cousin. Justin says he has videos of all the boys playing when they were little. The bond started young. He knows a team like this is a rare thing at a small school. A state title run would be nice, but this team is an unforgettable gift, the experience of a lifetime.

“We’re different out here,” Justin said. “We’re not a traditional basketball powerhouse. We’d start a season and ‘state championship’ wasn’t really on our radar because we don’t always have a chance. A lot of us are country kids, and Native American kids. We kind of cycle good teams every three or four years. We happened to catch a run and now we have other kids who are drilled in.”

At the end of the Starpoint game, the starters were on the Akron bench, exultant at the play of the reserves. Blake Gerstung said those guys wear the orange scout jerseys in practice and push the starters to be better, getting them ready to jump on opponents at the start of games. If they’re really better than last year, they need to prove it to one another every day in practice.

“I wouldn’t say better, but I would say the chemistry we have is better than last year,” said Blake Gerstung, who set the Akron receiving record and plans to play football in college.. “I think that could lead us to more wins and a state championship. We were very happy with the season we had last year. But you can see the pieces are still back, ready to make that state run again this year.”