OLEAN — After a busy week of five games in eight days, the Olean High boys basketball team emerged unscathed and nearing a perfect league campaign.
A Saturday afternoon victory, 71-49, over Salamanca made Olean 5-0 in that stretch, including four league wins, improving to 9-0 in CCAA West I and 16-1 overall. Olean’s experienced senior guards, Zion James and Kamdyn McClain, sparked the offense, combining for 44 points: 24 for James, 20 for McClain. Junior Jack DeRose added 10 points.
Olean ran out to a 22-12 lead after the first quarter. While the Warriors cut the lead to five in the second, Olean finished the half on an 11-2 run, bringing a 38-24 advantage into the break. Olean didn’t let the lead shrink below 11 in the second half.
“Salamanca’s a really tough team,” Olean coach Tim Kolasinski said. “They play hard the whole game and that’s what will always keep them in games, so even when we got up early, we knew that we couldn’t relax because they weren’t going to let us relax. The thing — and it’s been a repeating theme for us this year — is this group seems to have a way of finding answers. So whether it’s a big basket, a crucial stop, a big rebound … yeah, other teams go on runs, but that’s just the game of basketball and we always just figure out a way to end that run and then start one ourselves.”
McClain made six assists, James took four steals and Cade Anastasia grabbed nine rebounds.
Olean made 12 3-pointers, including five for James and four for McClain.
Junior Andy Herrick and senior Harley Hoag scored 14 points each for Salamanca (12-6, 5-4). The Warriors won their first four league games, but have struggled more in recent weeks after losing a week due to COVID protocols and returning with several players in and out of the lineup for various reasons.
On Saturday, R.J. McLarney (eye injury) and Lucus Brown (team discipline) sat on the bench, but both players should return by the end of this week, coach Adam Bennett said.
“We have four guys that average near double figures and two of them are out right now. So offensively that makes it a challenge,” he noted. “I’m so proud of what Andy and Harley are doing because they have defenses that are keying in on them specifically. Andy was face-guarded for a lot of the game today, he was face-guarded last night (at Allegany-Limestone) and he’s still producing, which is a credit to him. I thought Harley stepped up in the second half and started to shoot the ball better.
“But when we have all of our scorers, they’re able to get more space to operate and now because we’re down some guys, they’ve got to work harder, and they’re still producing and we need that.”
Bennett’s team needed a defensive and rebounding effort closer to Friday night’s, when the Warriors dropped a 46-43 heartbreaker in Allegany. But Olean made that difficult.
“They have good players that know how to space themselves away from the ball,” Bennett said. “They make you play really active away from the basketball. I thought in spurts we played well and then in spurts we got a little complacent away from the ball and every time we did, they were able to hit shots. They shot well from the outside, especially in the second half. So you’ve got to put 32 minutes of really solid defense together against a team like Olean and we were good in spurts but certainly not the whole game.”
The two teams meet again Wednesday in Salamanca, with Olean looking to close out an undefeated league championship run. The Huskies also have non-league games against Wellsville on Monday and at Clarence on Saturday.
Olean’s schedule tightened in the season’s final weeks due to several rescheduled games due to weather or COVID protocols.
“I think we’re playing very well, especially because of that circumstance,” Kolasinski said of the busy schedule. “That’s very difficult to get up and physically be able to go at the pace that we do and our guys have just been great at it.”
