YOUNGSTOWN — As he rolled the ball racks onto the court, Brian Hall was amped for the two hours ahead.
Hall loves teaching business courses at Lewiston-Porter, but coaching is the fun part of the job. Basketball has been a part of Hall’s identity for nearly his entire life.
It began as a Lancer in the early 1990s. For the last 15 years, Hall has coached on the hardwood through the ranks, from as low as fifth- and sixth-graders to as high as junior varsity, and even an interim stint coaching Niagara Catholic in 2011.
Heading into year 16 though adds a full circle moment for Hall. After two years of coaching the junior varsity team, Hall takes over the Lancers’ girls varsity basketball team, a group with high expectations after finishing against Depew in the Class B-1 championship last year.
Hall acknowledged he is back at the varsity level for the first time in over a decade. But no matter the level, the small parts like boxing out for rebounds or setting up and executing screens can make or break a team’s season, especially with championships on the line.
“I think coaching is coaching and basketball is basketball,” Hall said. “We believe that fundamentals (and) we believe that effort is huge. And I’m a coach that the only time that I’ll get upset with a team is if I see a lack of effort. As long as they’re given 100% working to get better every day … We work on fundamentals a lot in this program because we believe that’s what wins.”
And with those fundamentals as the backbone, Lew-Port has remained one of the top teams in Niagara County and Western New York girls basketball as a whole. Under former head coach Dick Lindamer, who retired at the end of last season, the green-and-white earned a share of the Niagara Frontier League and have lost only one league game in the last two years.
Lew-Port has competed on a larger scale, too, having appeared in the Class B-1 championship twice and winning the Class B overall title to advance to the Far West Regional two seasons ago. But along with a new head coach comes some roster changes.
Sophie Auer, the program’s all-time scorer, graduated in June and took her talents to Main Street to compete at Daemen. And guards Elina Kunik and Gianna Casale elected not to return for their senior season as well.
But even with the slight changes, Hall views this as a plus, saying Lew-Port has “nine very good basketball players,” starting with the three seniors in veteran shooting guard Aliza Whitehead, new point guard Emily Mountain and forward Emma Steimer.
“He’s all in on all of us,” Mountain said. “He wants nothing but success for this team and he’s going to keep pushing us no matter what. We can win a game by 30 and he’s still going to be just as hard on us if it was a two-point game.”
For the Lancers, the senior trio all only trailed Auer last season in terms of points per game (20.4) on the team but contributed significantly to the program’s 18-win season. Whitehead emerged as a three-point specialist and finished with 46 3-pointers, the most in the NFL, along with 12.5 points and nearly five rebounds a game.
Steimer was one of five players to appear in all 23 games for the Lancers as a junior, averaging 5.7 points and 3.4 rebounds, but will be on the sidelines to start the new slate due to a sprained ankle. Mountain led the team in assists (3.5) and was second in steals (3.2) while averaging 8.0 points per game.
While Mountain was in the starting lineup, Auer or Whitehead had ball-handling responsibilities. Now, in her last season, Mountain is excited for the opportunity to have a larger role in the offense as a “pass first” point guard.
Mountain has appreciated how Hall has guided them in recent weeks, adding she wouldn’t want anyone else coaching her senior season. The emphasis on the fundamentals, Mountain said, will make the Lancers a “better, sound team together” as the season progresses.
“We can never go in and just beat a team,” said Mountain on the lessons learned from one year ago. “It’s always, you got to work hard, always go into your full effort and never judge the team you’re about to play.”
Lew-Port kicks off its season when it hosts Nichols at 6:30 p.m. Friday in Youngstown.