The enduring images will be those of championship banners, hugs and high-fives and raised fists and trophies. But for the Salamanca boys and Portville girls basketball teams, there will always be much more to these photos than meets the eye.
And, in that way, they will always mean more to those who preserve them.
Both squads faced their share of adversity this year, and then some.
Salamanca started its season three weeks later than usual due to its football team’s run to a sectional title. It battled injury and illness, including a couple of bouts with COVID-19, until late January. It learned three days before the playoff seeding meeting that it was being bumped from Class B2, whose teams it had scouted exclusively throughout the year, to B1. It had two players lose parents within the last year.
Portville, too, suffered several injuries, losing seven of its 11 players at some point throughout the year. The list included multiple broken fingers, serious ankle sprains, two knee injuries and a concussion. For the first time in years, it didn’t have a savvy, seasoned point guard, instead thrusting into that role an untested sophomore, who fared well.
It, too, jumped up a class (from C to B2), though that happened before the season.
Both teams, however, not only handled that adversity, they conquered it.
SALAMANCA (20-6), playing one of the most challenging schedules in Western New York, won a sectional title and advanced to the New York State Final Four for the second time in three years. Portville, the fifth-smallest ‘B’ school, shook off a 2-5 stretch midseason to also claim its second sectional crown in three years.
Despite these obstacles, both teams went further than any other in their gender on the New York side of the Big 30 border. Resultantly, their coaches were rewarded, with Adam Bennett recently named the Thomas K. Oakley Memorial Award winner as the Big 30 boys’ Coach of the Year and Inga Welty earning the Margie Holland Award as the girls’ Coach of the Year.
Within those accolades themselves, there’s a story to tell.
BENNETT IS now a two-time COY honoree (also winning it in 2022), a reality he likely never could have conceived after taking over at Salamanca in 2016. Welty, a Portville basketball lifer, who bleeds maroon and white, won it for the first time in 15 years as a head coach, a likely overdue honor for someone whose record (215-96) is as illustrious as hers.
But each, thankful as they were, agreed, this is, and always has been, more about their players. About who they are and what they’ve overcome.
“I’m proud of what I’ve built at Portville, being a player there, devoting many, many years to teaching, advising and coaching,” Welty said. “(But) I don’t look at these girls as just basketball players … and I don’t look at myself as just being their coach. I look at myself as someone who has helped mold them as people, as strong women, as girls who will make a positive impact. I’m very honored to get the Big 30 award, but I’m happier with the fact that I’ve helped create good people.”
The Warriors, Bennett acknowledged, faced more difficulties this season than they have in any of his previous seven.
“But we said this even before the season, with this group of kids … these guys thrive on adversity, and they have their entire lives,” he said. “And I really believe, what we accomplished and how special it was, our kids deserved it because they’ve gone through harder stuff in their lives.
“We have a bunch of guys that have dealt with a tremendous amount of real adversity that no one should have to face at that age. And so, when you talk about facing adversity in basketball, that’s a totally different ballgame.”
THERE WERE, undoubtedly, moments to overcome.
Along the way, though, there were also moments of belief.
Salamanca, following a season-opening loss to Cheektowaga, had another stern test waiting in Williamsville South, the eventual Class A sectional champion. Minus two starters and with illness still hanging over its collective head, the shorthanded Warriors still drubbed the Billies by 18.
Portville (17-7), meanwhile, began the year 7-0, and though it suffered midseason losses to both, it went toe-to-toe, also shorthanded, with Class C state powers Frewsburg and Randolph, falling 55-52 and 47-43, respectively. It also knew, deep down, that in not having to face the Bears and Cardinals, its path to a sectional title would actually be a bit more favorable in Class B2, and it was.
“And then when injuries started happening, it was kind of like a punch in the gut because we know we have a good thing going,” Welty said. “But the girls buckled down, they worked hard day after day and they persevered.”
BUT EVENTUALLY, for each, a funny thing happened: their early misfortune became the source of their late-season magic. Players who were slated to be eighth and ninth men suddenly became starters and sixth men. By late February, by being pushed into roles they wouldn’t have otherwise held, those players had gained valuable experience, they were battle-tested.
They were ultimately re-joined by their regulars, creating a more formidable lineup.
And both were that much better come playoff time.
“I really do believe the adversity we faced and all the stuff that we were able to kind of maneuver through allowed us to have the run that we did and get back to the (state) final four,” Bennett said.
Noted Welty, “The other girls had to step up. So when you’re taking your sixth, seventh and eighth players and now these kids are starters and you’ve gotta kind of figure it out on the fly, it made us stronger in the long run. We took those licks in the middle, but even with those other girls, we were hanging with Frewsburg and Randolph. It made us better.”
We’ll stop here to acknowledge the proverbial elephant: Both teams’ success was driven, primarily, by singular stars. Lilly Bentley and Lucus Brown both earned Big 30 Player of the Year honors. Both, standouts since their freshman year, were among the top players in Western New York this winter. Both managed to keep their teams afloat as they waded one issue after another.
“Because we had a player like that in our program, who really is a program-changer,” Bennett said of Brown, “I knew that we had an opportunity and a window to accomplish quite a bit.”
“As far as a go-to player, she’s special,” Welty added of Bentley. “Other teams have to game plan for her specifically. So that takes a lot of pressure off the other girls.”
Still, there was a mountain that needed to be climbed. An extra gear that needed to be found. That extra something that would allow each team to, put it all together, be at their very best in March.
And both teams, behind coaches who have mostly done nothing but win over the course of their careers, captured it.
PORTVILLE WON four playoff games, including the B2 championship, by an average of 23 points before falling to Southwestern in the Class B crossover. Salamanca had to go through five state-ranked teams to get to Glens Falls, including Newfane in the finals and Falconer in the crossover. It beat its Section 6 foes by an average of 15 points, including Fredonia in the quarters, whom it had lost to by 16 just two weeks earlier.
It’s these things that allowed a potentially great year to become something truly special.
And yes, this was as special as the ones both coaches enjoyed just two years earlier.
“The fact that I had six seniors also made it special because usually you don’t have that many seniors on a team,” said Welty, whose experience was made even more remarkable by the fact she had her daughters on the bench as assistant coaches for the Panthers’ title game triumph over Wilson, including the two she won a crown with in 2022 (Welty is also very grateful to top aide and JV coach Jason Luther).
“Three of them were either starters or contributors when they were sophomores, too. They were part of it and they understood winning. The way that they were able to overcome that adversity just kind of distinguished them. Winning with the twins (Mallory and Mia) was amazing, because those are my kids and those are their friends, but this one was just as sweet.
“Just the fact we overcame all of those challenges makes that true.”
For Salamanca, because of what it had previously endured, this was “never too much.”
“A lot of teams, the schedule that we played would have been too much, the fact that we moved to B-1, the fact we played all those ranked teams … we got the toughest road that we could possibly have,” said Bennett, thankful to assistants Greg Herrick, Pete Weishan and Hall of Fame former longtime Olean coach Jeff Anastasia, who joined the Warriors this year. “That’s the most rewarding thing, because nobody can say that we didn’t earn it.
“We deserved to be there. We found a way to get through it. Our kids for the rest of their lives get to use that as an example of life, and how adversity defines you in life. And they’re going to be successful people because they’ve already proven they don’t back away from that kind of stuff.”
