The boys basketball team at Byron-Bergen has never won a Section V title and has ten league championships; the last coming in 2005. But at just about the midway portion of the 2022-23 schedule, the Bees are undefeated at 9-0 and ranked eighth in New York State among Class C schools in the January 3 NYS Sportswriters poll.
And using the term undefeated doesn’t completely explain their first half dominance. They have defeated all but one opponent by at least 22 points with a high of a 48 point margin in their second game in January.
Leading the way is a trio of three-year varsity members in junior center Braedyn Chambry and senior guards David Brumsted and Gianni Ferrara.
Chambry leads the team with 154 points, 87 rebounds, and eight blocked shots over the first eight games while Brumsted was second in both points (110) and rebounds (41) while leading the squad with 22 steals. Ferrera stood third with 97 points and led the team with 27 assists and has added 20 steals. He had a career-best 25 points against Elba on January 4.
“I feel like this year we’ve really gelled as a team; last year we were kind of finding our roles,” Ferrera said. “We played a lot this summer, found out what we were made of in summer league and we just transferred it over to the season.”
“We’ve played together pretty much our whole lives, so to see it come together senior year fells pretty good; keep it rolling,” Brumsted added.
The three are far from the only weapons the Bees have, as senior guard Ryan Muscarella had a breakout game January 6 against Holley, scoring 18 points with three treys. And junior Colin Martin also had solid supporting numbers with 58 points and was third with 14 steals.
“Whatever we can control, we control the game and play how we want it to go – it doesn’t matter if it’s fast or slow, we just want to be in charge,” Chambry described their offensive attack.
The Bees one season ago finished just three games over .500 and lost in the second round of the Section V playoffs. And they were 5-6 in the shortened 2020-21 season.
So, what has turned the tables this season?
“I think just maturity; these guys when they get a lead on somebody, they don’t usually give it back and usually try to build on it,” Byron-Bergen head coach Roxanne Noeth said.
“We handle the clock situation really good later in games where maybe in the past we would come down and bomb them up and get all flustered, these guys definitely limit possessions in closer games so I’m really proud of that effort; it’s certainly something we’ve really worked on over the last several years.
“They’re good friends; they’re together all the time and that’s what you want. It makes my job a little bit easier. Sometimes it’s Braedyn, some nights it’s David, tonight was the first time that Ryan really had a good night and he was a really good shooter for us last year, so getting him back into rhythm is really important for us going forward.”
“We feel if we play our roles as a basketball team, then we’ll make it however far we can go,” Chambry said.
“Obviously we want to win a sectional title – that’s our number one goal and win the league,” Ferrera said. “Those are pretty much our team goals. Feels good (to be ranked), but we got a lot of big games coming up.”
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