NTL BOYS BASKETBALL: CANTON WELCOMES NEW ERA FOR 2023-2024 SEASON (2023-11-30)

BY CHRIS MANNING
Northern Tier Sports Report
It’ll be a new era for Canton boys’ basketball as longtime assistant coach Jim Williams takes over for Brock Kitchen. They’ll be plenty of new faces on the court, too, with several starters from last year’s team graduating.

“We did get a little bit of a dip as far as numbers go, especially in our sophomore and senior years right now,” said Williams. “We do have a lot of ninth graders coming up, and we have a pretty big group of juniors. And we’ve got quite a few more people coming up, so we definitely have some talent coming up in our lower grades. It’s all going to be building, and getting everybody on the same page, right now.”

They have to find a way to replace 34 points per game from their main out going seniors, but do return Ben Fitch (7.5 points per game, 4.6 rebounds per game) and Talin Williams (3.1 PPG, 4.7 RPB, 1.3 blocks per game). 

They’ll also need to get some help from others, like Lance Route, who was a spark plug for the Warriors off the bench last year.

“I’m very excited, but’s going to be tough,” said Route. “Hopefully, we’re going to go out there and get some wins.”

Losing so many key players means they have to get a familiarity with each on the court.

“We’re just working together as a team,” said Route. “Just keep being competitive, and never give up.”

He said he’s spent most of the off season ‘getting shots up.’

Another senior looking to make his mark will be Kevin Fleming. He’s a little banged up to start the year but expects to be ready by opening day.

“We just have new things, in general,” said Fleming. “We have new legs, new teammates, and different ways to run things.”

He believes their offense will be more flexible this year.

“We’re focusing on in game decisions, instead of running set offense and set defenses,” Fleming remarked. “We’re working with what the opponent gives us.”

Their biggest goal will be a strong defensive team.

“We want to keep the score down a little bit, that would help our offense,” said Fleming.

“Defensive is always first and foremost on my mind,” added Williams. “I think to have a good team you always to be able to control the tempo, you have to be able to, somewhat, keep teams doing what you want them to do, not what they want to do. One of my biggest philosophies is to do things to make other teams practice for you.”

They’re in the same boat as a lot of teams in the NTL Small School this year. Outside of NEB the other teams will be looking to mix in quite a few new faces.

Sayre, Williamson, NP-Liberty, and CV will all have some growing pains to go through.

Last year, Canton showed that they can lose a lot of key players but still compete. They lost four starters from the year before but still nearly won a league title, falling to Sayre in overtime.

That shows that, if anything, the Warriors aren’t afraid to go out and compete.

“We’re going to take it one day at a time, and see where it goes,” said Williams. “We’re going to play one game at a time, and see where we get to from that. I don’t have any expectations other than getting the boys to play better ball than they started with when they got here in the first day of practice.”

ROSTER (Grade)

Raiden Lyon (12)

Brayden Vroman (12)

Lance Route (12)

Kevin Fleming (12)

Talin Williams (11)

Quincy Wesneski (11)

Ben Fitch (11)

Walker Bailey (11)

Andrew Smith (11)

Cohan Morgan (11)

Lawrence Halbfoerster (10)

Ryder Route (10)

Ethan Brasington (9)

Gunner Resavage (9)

Monte Whitehead (9)

Rylan Wesneski (9)

Landon Lake (9)

Chase Petrowski (9)

Alex Brown (9)

SCHEDULE

Dec. 1 at Millville, 7 p.m.

Dec. 6 vs Wyalusing, 7 p.m.

Dec. 8 at Galeton Tournament

Dec. 9 at Galeton Tournament

Dec. 13 at Towanda, 7 p.m.

Dec. 15 at NEB, 7 p.m.

Dec. 18 vs Sullivan County, 7 p.m.

Dec. 20 at NPL, 7 p.m.

Dec. 22 vs Troy, 7 p.m.

Jan. 5 at CV, 7 p.m.

Jan. 8 vs Edison, 7 p.m.

Jan. 10 vs Sayre, 7 p.m.

Jan. 12 vs Williamson, 7 p.m.

Jan. 16 at Wellsboro, 7 p.m,.

Jan. 18 at NPM, 7 p.m.

Jan. 23 vs Athens, 7 p.m.

Jan. 25 vs NEB, 7 p.m.

Jan. 30 vs NPL, 7 p.m.

Feb. 1 vs CV, 7 p.m.

Feb. 6 at Sayre, 7 p.m.

Feb. 8 at Williamson, 7 p.m.

Feb. 12 vs Montgomery, 7 p.m.

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