West Seneca West Boys Basketball improves to 10-0 with win over Orchard Park

The West Seneca West High School boys basketball team is 10-0, maybe for the first time in program history. New coach Des Randall and his staff are checking into that.

Thursday’s night’s 83-72 win over ECIC I rival Orchard Park was the 10th double-digit victory for the Indians – who are firing on all cylinders early on. But West Seneca West also knows the goals are nowhere near accomplished just yet. 

“That’s a big accomplishment but we have to keep working,” Randall said. “We’ve been playing great but 10-0 means we’re only halfway done with the season. We still have a long way to go.”

West Seneca West controlled the first three quarters of the very-tightly called game. It may not have been the best performance of the season for the Indians, but they did what they had to do against a long-time rival and keep the strong start rolling along.

It was a nice win for us,” said West Seneca West star Juston Johnson, who led everybody with 34 points. “We wish we could’ve played a little better but we got the job done. “We’re real excited; this is one of the best starts the school ever had, so we want to keep it going.

West Seneca West (10-0 overall, 5-0 in ECIC I) led from start to finish, building a 20-plus point lead in the second half. OP outscored the Indians by 10 in the fourth quarter garbage time making the game appear a little closer that the final score may indicate.

That said, OP made West Seneca West work for everything it got. And, although this was the smallest margin of victory the Indians have seen thus far, Randall said he was still very happy with the end result.

“That’s a great win,” he said. “That’s a team that’s very competitive; they’re scrappy, they’re tough, they’re full of confidence and they have guys that know how to play and they know how to play together. The hardest teams to beat are the teams are the ones that believe. Sometimes those teams are tougher to beat that the ones that have a ton of talent. So we don’t take that win lightly, I don’t care how many points we won by. That’s good win against a good team.”

Meanwhile, the Quakers fell to 3-5 overall and 1-3 in ECIC I. Orchard Park came to play but in the end, couldn’t keep up with the high-powered Indians.

“We’ve been close in a lot of games,” OP coach Jim Gibson said. “But I think this game was the way our season has gone in the game’s we’ve lost. We missed layups and free throws and you can’t do that against good teams. But we’re getting better. Hopefully we can keep climbing the mountain until we can get to the top of it.”

Alex Wayland scored 17 points for West Seneca West, while Nate Ryniec tossed in 14 points and Adrian Baugh added 10 for the Indians.

Ryan Liberatore poured in 21 for OP while Josh McTigue added 13 and Dave Morris 12 for the Quakers.

Photo’s courtesy of Mike Pidanick