Settlers boys basketball team finishes summer play ready for season

The Southold High School boys basketball team never got an opportunity to play its Town of Brookhaven Summer Basketball season finale against Mattituck. That’s because the Settlers game at Eastport-South Manor High School on Thursday, July 31, was called off.

“There were like a million different factors working against us,” head coach Will Fujita said. “The real reason was that Eastport lost power. So, they were scrambling to find a place for us to play. They were scrambling to find refs to officiate, people to do the clock. Because both of us were out of the playoffs, and had some guys that are banged up, we made the decision to take a tie, and we’ll do something during the off-season together.”

While he was disappointed his team didn’t get an opportunity to play its North Fork rivals, Fujita learned much about his squad during the summer season.

Southold, a Class C side, finished with a 4-4-1 record, defeating Smithtown Christian (Class D) twice, 57-19 and 44-20. More importantly, the Settlers upended a pair of Class A schools, Eastport-South Manor, 42-38, and Rocky Point, 50-40.

It was vital for the team’s confidence.

“It’s super valuable to play against bigger schools,” Fujita said. “The opportunity to be with each other twice a week during the summer, it’s all good. The more time that they spend together as a group, the better the chemistry is going to get. I can already tell that this group really enjoys spending time together. Luke [Grigonis, assistant coach,] and I enjoy spending a ton of time with them.

“I was actually in the gym with six of them this morning from 8 to 9, because somebody texted me and asked if we could get shots up. That’s the type of group we’re working with here,” he added.

The Settlers most memorable game? Their win over ESM on July 10. Senior forward Travis Sepenoski sank a last-second corner trey for the finishing touches. Junior forward Kyan Olsen’s presence as a big man (6-foot-3) who can shoot from the outside was a factor as well.

“Kyan did a really good job,” Fujita said. “He’s a great shooter, but he did an awesome job getting to the rim. It forced them to kind of stay a little bit more compact, which allowed for us at the end of the game to spread the floor and have opportunities from three.”

Fujita expects Sepenoski to be a team leader in his final season.

“He sees the game like a guard, but he’s built like forward,” he said. “That’s a really nice skill set to have. It’d be nice to be able to reward his hard work by building a team that could benefit from the way that he sees the floor.”

The Southold coach has liked what he has seen in Olsen as well.

“He is one of the most meticulous workers that I’ve had in coaching,” Fujita said. “I’m going into my 10th year coaching. I’ve had plenty of guys over the years, and I haven’t seen too many that are as detailed as he is in terms of his conditioning, his diet and how much he works at his craft.”

Travis and Kyan were part of a core of seven players that were regulars for games, as were seniors Collin Cornell and Yiannis Gavalas and juniors Brandon Moran, CJ Bailey and Nico Califano.

“All seven of the guys made huge improvements,” Fujita said. “Our two guards, Nico and CJ, both did a great job with off-ball defense, which is something that as a guard, is a really valuable skill to have. Yiannis and Collin did a great job controlling the glass. We were physically outsized in a lot of those games. The other teams were taller than we were. We rebounded equally, if not better, with every team. That had to do with Collin and Yiannis doing an awesome job controlling the glass.”

And there were some unique challenges as well.

Only five players showed up for the Settlers’ 44-20 win over Smithtown Christian on Tuesday, July 29. That forced Fujita to change his strategy.

“A lot of the summer we played with a fast pace,” he said. “We only had five guys, and we were doing a really good job slowing things down. That’s not the way that everybody wants to play, but if we can figure out a way to win in multiple ways, we’ll be a better team for it.”

The fruits of the Settlers’ summer labor will become more apparent when the high school basketball season starts in December.