Schmidt, Huskies Pull Away From Williamsville East For Non-League Win

For years now, Olean’s Mike Schmidt has been widely-regarded as one of the best boys basketball players in Western New York. Williamsville East learned why on Friday night.

The senior standout took over down the stretch and the Huskies pulled away from the feisty Flames for a 62-47 non-league win in Williamsville.

“He took over,” Olean coach Jeff Anastasia. “That’s what good players do.”

Schmidt scored nine points and had three assists in a game-deciding 16-0 run late in the fourth quarter. That turned a one-point deficit with 5 1/2 minutes left into the fourth into double-digit win for the Huskies.

“We went to that zone to switch up the pace and got things going,” said Schmidt, who finished with a game-high 21 points. “We were able to get out on the break, make some plays and ultimately run away.”

The game was back-and-forth for much of the game’s first 26 minutes and East took a 45-44 lead on a Cal Shifflet free throw with 5:36 left. Schmidt responded with a layup just six seconds later and then quickly added two more buckets to send his team on its way.

East didn’t score again until Shifflet buried a pair of free throws with 27.2 seconds left to stop the bleeding.

“I think the last few minutes, we showed our youth and they showed their experience,” East coach R.J. Killinger said. “We didn’t do enough to close it out. We will get better and hopefully by year’s end, that’s a game we can close out.”

In a game featuring two of the biggest stars in the area, Shifflet was as good as anyone on the court. The junior finished with 20 points to lead the Flames (2-2) and added 19 rebounds.

“He played awesome, I’m so proud of him,” East coach R.J. Killinger said. “He dominated at both ends. Some of the other guys maybe need to help him out a bit on the defensive end. But we’re young, we played hard … but I didn’t come here just to play hard.”

Olean, which returned seven top performers from last year’s sectional runner-up, moved to 4-0 on the year. Matt Droney added 16 points and Brian Ramarge scored 12 for the Huskies.

Kevin Early scored 10 points for East, including a game-tying 3-pointer early in the fourth. Joe Mack also netted 10 points and Dillon Lobdell tossed in seven for the Flames.

“I knew they had a very good team,” Anastasia said. “The Schifflet kid is a very good player. We’re not very big but we dug in on defense. They hit some shots early and we didn’t hit some we usually make. But give them credit, they played very good D. The 2-3 was very good, they were active and I thought they did a heck of a job.”