By PATRICK WALSH
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Basketball Coaches of New York (BCANY) Summer Hoops Festival tips off Friday in Johnson City, New York. Rochester is sending two squads to the annual festival with championship hopes in their sights.
“It’s pretty special,” said Jeff Parizek, who is now in his 11th year of coaching the festival. “There’s two coaches that have done it from the beginning until now with this tournament and it’s myself and Greg Flynn from Long Island.”
Throughout those 11 years, Parizek has coached names like Syracuse guard Dyaisha Fair (Edison Tech) and current pro Cierra Dillard (Gates Chili/Buffalo). This year, Parizek believes his squad is a bit different than previous years.
“In years past, we have had kids that are ‘stars’ within their programs and within Section V,” said Parizek. “This year we have a lot of great talent with a mixture of older experience and leadership and some young talent. Overall, this team is a balanced group, there is not a lot of drop-off between what you would consider 1-12 as far as the rotation goes.”
With Kaylee Marvin (Gananda) out due to injury, the girls’ team has two returners from last year in Ne’vaeh Buntley (Fairport) and Mallory Heise (Hilton). Parizek will look to lean on their experience from last year’s tournament.
“With those two kids coming back, as well as some really good new talent to the team, we’re excited and hungry,” said Parizek. “We know that there’s a bullseye on our back because the other programs know of our success year-in and year-out so they definitely bring their best effort against us.”
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In addition to Heise, five juniors are heading to Johnson City for the Rochester team, that being Jayla Belle (Lyons), Addison Morgan (Webster Schroeder), Molly O’Toole (Aquinas), Kendall Parker (Dundee/Bradford) and Takyla Vaughn (Newark).
With the festival only allowing for four practices, Parizek’s squad is at a disadvantage heading into the tournament with only three practices, but isn’t too worried about the setback.
“We had kids coming back from as far as Orlando, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. It’s put a bit more constraint on time with the girls, so I told them at practice that every minute is crucial, every second is important, so we kind of scaled some stuff down just to allow the kids to get a better feel of what we want to do, but on the flip side we are still pushing them, we are still teaching them and we are preparing them for every situation.”
Payton Bentley (Hornell), Rhylin Fehrenbach (Victor), Loren Green (Aquinas), Allie Hall (Bishop Kearney and Lena Lipani (Penfield) round out the 2023 team.
The Rochester Girls begin play against North Country with a 4:00 p.m. tip at Johnson City High School on Friday. Parizek’s squad then matches up against Central later that day before playing Mid Hudson and Long Island on Saturday.
“If these 12 girls, which I know they can, really buy into each other, not ‘I’ but ‘We’, whether it’s offensively moving the ball or defensively playing as a unit, then we are going to be successful because there is a lot of talent on this team,” said Parizek.
Tim Lewis takes over the clipboard for the boys’ team.
“It’s a big honor for me to be able to coach our area’s top athletes,” said Lewis. “Being able to get them all together and represent Section V is a huge honor. I never played in the festival, but am familiar with the guys who won it the last time in 2016 so to win it again is important for us.”
Some of the members of the aforementioned 2016 squad include Detroit Piston Isaiah Stewart (McQuaid Jesuit), Portland Trailblazer forward Jeenathan Willams (UPrep) and recent Denver Nuggets draft pick, Jalen Pickett (Aquinas).
Lewis has four returners from last year’s team, that being Monroe County Division I Player of the Year Garrett Clar (Victor), Second-Team Monroe County Division III forward Max Michalski (Pittsford Sutherland), First-Team Monroe County Division I forward/guard Reggie Smith, Jr. (Brighton) and Merritt Holly, Jr. (LeRoy).
“We are going to lean on them a lot, and we have so far to help create the image for the guys of what we are doing. A lot of these guys are playing for the first time and the returning guys can shed some light on what it is like.”
Some of the new players include Cam Blankenberg (Wayne), Jake Pangrazio (York), Sam Howland (SOTA), Lashard Lowry (Fairport) and Chris Leysath (Aquinas).
Lewis will also look to use the experience of both Clar and Michalski coming off sectional titles, as well as other members of his squad’s playoff experience help lead Rochester to its first title since 2016.
“It makes life easy for me as a coach because it shows that these guys have been in tough situations before,” said Lewis. “Even the guys who didn’t win sectional titles have competed for some or have gotten close, so these guys have all played tough basketball against tough opponents.”
Trevor Hofer (Penfield), Zaccar Johnson (Greece Athena) and Michael Bischoping (Pittsford Mendon) round out the new additions to the roster.
Lewis’ squad opens play against Buffalo on Friday, tipping off at 2:30 at Johnson City Elementary School, followed by a 5:30 tip against Central at Johnson City Middle School. The Rochester boys’ team then faces Suffolk and Hudson Valley on Saturday.
“We just go hard, no brakes. The good thing about the guys is that they all want to be here, they’re super competitive and they push each other. We don’t get to waste a minute in the gym, we take advantage of all the time we have.”
The semi-finals and finals occur on Sunday morning and afternoon at the Johnson City Central School campus.
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