Lancaster Boys Basketball Opens New Gym with Impressive Win Over Dunkirk

For the first time, the Lancaster High School boys basketball team took the floor in its brand-new state-of-the-art gym. And the Legends made sure they got things started in style.

Lancaster started strong and rolled to a 54-23 win over Dunkirk in the opening round of the Legends’ 42nd annual tip-off tournament on Wednesday night.

“It was big for us,” coach John Otto said. “We talked about it beforehand, 30 years ago from now you’re going to talk about how you were the first team to play here and you want to remember it in a good way.”

The new gym, located just down the hall from the old one, includes a video scoreboard and also comes with new locker rooms for the boys and girls. It opened in the fall for the volleyball teams and the basketball debut was also a memorable one for Lancaster.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” said Legends senior Jakob Jerebko, who led all scorers with 19 points. “Lancaster Booster Club did a great job funding for it and it was an amazing atmosphere to play in and I loved the fan support.”

Lancaster will face rival Depew at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the championship game. The Wildcats – a late entry replacing two-time defending champ Health Sciences – advanced with a 59-36 win over Cleveland Hill in the other semifinal on Wednesday.

“It’s a great experience playing them,” said Jerebko, whose father is a Depew graduate. “I can’t wait to play Depew on Friday and hopefully we get a lot of people out here to watch it.”

Jerebko led the Legends with 19 points – 14 coming in the decisive first half. Jon Kisker added 13 points and Joe Harrington scored 11 in the season-opener.

“Everybody did their part this game,” Kisker said. “We moved the ball well. It was a great effort. We’ve been practicing hard all week and now we’re looking forward to playing Depew on Friday.”

Earl Stewart led Dunkirk with 11 points. The Marauders beat Lancaster in the last two season openers but the Legends had the upper hand from the get-go this time around.

Lancaster held Dunkirk under 10 points in each of the four quarters and led by more than 30 in the fourth quarter.

“It was a good team effort,” Otto said. “A couple guys took charge but really everyone played their role.  We were working hard on defense once we got the intensity going. To give up 23 points in a game at the varsity level, that’s pretty good.”