Young Lancers Ready To Take On The Best Competition

There’s a lot of youth for the St. Mary’s High School boys basketball team, which has just three seniors on the 14-man roster. The same can be said for a lot of the Monsignor Martin Athletic Association teams.

But the Lancers always expect to compete with even the biggest private school powers. So as always, St. Mary’s has set up its non-league schedule to face the best teams it can face to get ready for the grind of league play.

“It’s tough’ everyone kind of reloaded in the Monsignor Martin,” St. Mary’s coach Paul Rath said. “We’re playing some stiff non-leaguers to get us ready for the Monsignor Martin. So hopefully it works out.”

The Lancers’ non-league schedule includes three top tournaments. The first was the AdPro Public/Private Challenge at nearby Depew High School. The Lancers took a huge early lead against Section ECIC II contender West Seneca East but then had to hang on for a 61-57 victory.

“It’s always good to get a win but I would’ve liked to have been a little more crisp there at the end. We made some dumb plays, we took some dumb shots and we put them on the line way too many times. We have to clean some things up.

The tough competition will continue for St. Mary’s, which will return to Depew for the Wildcats’ annual holiday tournament on Wednesday and Thursday. The Lancers will start out against City Honors and then face either Depew or Cheektowaga Central in either the championship or consolation game.

St Mary’s will then head to the Five Guys Tournament at Williamsville North next week. The Lancers are the defending championship in both tournaments.

St. Mary’s lost most of last season’s contributors but still have some talent back. Daquan Hunt leads the group of seniors that also includes Zach Penksa and Collin Tytka. St. Mary’s also has a talented group of nine juniors. That group is led by Eric Brown and Christian Szablewski, who saw significant action last season as well as current regulars Matt Ciezki and Frank Propis.

We’re pretty young,” Rath said. “We have three seniors and some (juniors) that played a lot last year. And they’re going to have to step up and be leaders. We need people to be vocal other than me; they need one of their peers to get on them.”