The Williston Boys Basketball team has come out strong this season, with a 5-0 start, establishing themselves as a top team to watch.
The Wildcats opened the season with big wins against Wilbraham & Monson (80-73), as well as Tabor Academy and St. Thomas More School. Lead by coaches Ben Farmer and Jayson Leigh, the boys are ecstatic and ready for what the rest of the season will bring.
This year’s starting five includes Preston Edmead at point guard, Ricardo Nieves at shooting guard, and Ore Odutayo, Ashton Reynolds, and Kyle Seltzer. The team also has strong help from the bench, including, Max Kellog and Will Zhou.
Williston added two more wins to the tally at a Dec. 20 tournament at Dexter Southfield, during which they Exeter and Thayer.
The Boys Basketball program has a long and storied tradition dating back to 1898. The team competes at the Class A level in NEPSAC, a nationally recognized league that combines strong academics with highly competitive athletics. The team has enjoyed tremendous success over the years, including competing in the NEPSAC Class A championship game three times since 2015, winning the title in both 2015 and 2016. In the 2023-2024 season, the squad finished with a record of 19-7. The momentum from last year clearly carried over into the start of the 2024-2025 season.
Ore Odutayo, a senior on the basketball team from Guilderland N.Y., is happy with how the team has started, but isn’t resting on their early success.
“We can’t let the record right now get to our heads,” he said. “Gotta keep the pace and keep trying to improve our games.”
Kyle Seltzer, a sophomore boarder is excited for the season, and proud of how well they’ve done already.
“We were all super excited to get back and we built up a lot of anticipation in the fall so when the season started we were ready to go and we started off super well so it’s been all positive so far,” Kyle said.
Senior Pittman Alley feels the same as both Ore and Kyle; he’s feeling good about the early wins but doesn’t want to get lazy.
“We have great chemistry, as we are mostly a returning group,” he said. “We have won games off talent so far but need to execute on defense in order to continue our success.”
Ore thinks the opponents so far have been strong, and great tests for the team as they move forward in the season.
“We’ve played some really tough opponents so far, which is good,” he said. “Gives us a really good look on how the rest of our opponents in the season are gonna be like. I’d say that WMA was probably our toughest so far.”
Ore mentioned Preston and Ashton as particularly impressive so far.
“Press is coming out very dominant, and very consistent per usual. No suprises there,” he said. “And Ashton is bringing a really good spark to the team that’s been crucial in games this year so far. Really good addition to the squad.”
Along with Ore, Kyle also agrees Preston and Ashton Reynolds are dominant players, “as they have been great leaders, but everyone on the team has played a crucial role to the successful start to our season thus far,” he said.
Always dedicated and positive, Pittman has a strategy for the remainder of the season.
“We have to take the season one game at a time. We played well at the same time last year, but thought we were entitled to keep on winning,” he said. “We must play our way and practice well in order to end up where we want to be at the end of the season.”
