Three teams vie for Division II title

Dec. 4—It's a new two-year cycle for the PIAA, and that means the Heartland Athletic Conference realigned its divisions. Handicapping the new Division II looks awfully similar to last year's Division I race.

A tight battle with Lewisburg, Danville and Mifflinburg all in the mix.

Though point guard Cannon Griffith graduated, the Wildcats on paper have the most talent back in the division with guard Tyler Reigel, along with inside players Carter Breed and Ethan Bomgardner. Senior Zac Wertman — a defensive stalwart for the Wildcats' team that made the 2020 District 4 championship game with Danville — is also back from missing his junior season with an injury.

"Those four seniors are going to lead us," Mifflinburg first-year coach Ian Elliot said. "I think the sky can be the limit for us, but we just have to put it together."

Elliot replaces Andre Roupp, who stepped down in the offseason after 10 seasons at the helm. Elliot's been a junior high school coach in the Mifflinburg program and was Aaron Ettinger's junior varsity coach at Midd-West from 2013-15.

Like the football team, Elliot expects the Wildcats' freshman class to contribute. Jackson Griffith has a chance to replace his brother at point guard, and Chad Martin will be in the varsity rotation.

"It's going to take them a bit to get up to varsity-level speed on the basketball court, but they both have been through big games and playoffs with the football team," Elliot said. "They played with us in the summer, and I expected them (in the summer) to be big contributors, but the football season just made them more mature."

Lewisburg lost Daily Item Player of the Year Jacob Hernandez to graduation, and three other seniors from last year's HAC-I champion, District 4 Class 4A champion and state round of 16 qualifiers that finished 23-6.

The Green Dragons return three important contributors from that team — point guard Cam Michaels and Vaji's first two guys off the bench last year in Jack Blough and Henry Harrison. Senior Devin Bodden and junior Noah Pawling, whose dad (Ryan) was a 1,000-point scorer at Milton and aunt (Tricia) is Milton's all-time leading girls' scorer and played at St. Bonaventure, also return.

Add in football quarterback Wade Miller, who missed last basketball season with an injury — coach John Vaji feels like the Green Dragons will be in contention once again.

"I think we'll be pretty solid. Cam, Henry and Jack give us a pretty good nucleus. All of the rest of those kids but Wade got some real good experience last year," Vaji said. "The JV team was real successful. We might be deeper than last season. We can probably go about 10 deep, and we've been tweaking some things to allow us to do that."

Most of the Green Dragons' basketball players participated in a fall sport, and Vaji thinks that makes his team really eager for the season to start.

"I like when my guys play a fall sport. We did our summer stuff, and then it allows them to not think about basketball for a few months," Vaji said. "They come in excited for basketball season. They come in with a great attitude and really work to get ready for the season."

Danville coach Gary Grozier has the opposite problem. His top scorer and shooter from last season — Carson Persing — just wrapped up one of the greatest football careers in Danville history on Nov. 25. Persing, Dameon White and Hayden Winn are the lone varsity contributors back from last year's Ironmen team that lost in the district quarterfinals to Mifflinburg.

Grozier expects his four seniors — Persing, White, Cade Cush and Brenden Haas — combined with the youth in the program — the Ironmen have 13 underclassmen — to gel by the latter part of the season into a pretty good team.

"It's about who is hot in February and March. I like who we have," Grozier said. "But what you see in the early part of the season isn't going to be a finished product."

Grozier anticipated a long Danville football season, so the Ironmen don't open until next weekend at the First Columbia Bank Tip-Off Tournament at Bloomsburg University.

The Ironmen's biggest weakness will again be size. Sophomore Daniel Walker and Winn are the tallest Ironmen at 6-foot-2. Danville will also be tested by a tough nonleague schedule playing the likes of Whitehall — in the Bloomsburg tournament — Abington Heights, along with nondivision games with Shamokin and Loyalsock.

"We found some really good competition, and we're going to take some lumps early," Grozier said. "But it's only going to help us in the postseason."

Midd-West lost its top scorer to graduation — Braeden Reid — and two other players won't be there to start the season. Griffen Paige is concentrating on baseball after accepting a scholarship to Wright State in Ohio to pitch, and Cole Shutt is still recovering from an ACL tear he suffered at the end of last basketball season.

"I like the make-up of our team, its work ethic, and they are totally unselfish," Mustangs coach Lance Adams said. "They work their rear end off. We'll hold our own in the nonleague games, but the league games, they will be a tough row to hoe."

Adams expects junior Noah Romig to carry the scoring load to replace Reid, who was a four-year starter for the Mustangs, but size will be an issue without the 6-foot-5 Paige.

"I like the way we play defense. We probably don't have a true big, but we can pressure the ball," Adams said. "We'll want to push the ball and get into the fullcourt because if we play to halfcourt defense against size, it will be an issue."

Central Columbia and Montoursville round out the division this season.

The Blue Jays finished 4-17 last season and must get off to a better start. Central Columbia lost its first nine games of the year last season.

Montoursville was 11-7 last year, before the Warriors dropped their final five games of the season, including a first-round loss to Shamokin in the Class 4A playoffs.