By J.P. BUTLER

Special to the Era

The parallels between them were as plentiful as they were profound.

And they were predicated on one shared sentiment: Belief.

The Salamanca girls and Fillmore boys basketball teams had both suffered significant graduation hits, with the former losing a pair of Big 30 all-stars — Karina Crouse and Lezli McComber — from a 17-5 team and the latter surrendering all-time program great Zach Sisson heading into the 2024-25 season.

On the outside, people might have questioned what these squads would be capable of without their top stars. On the inside, however, their coaches maintained that, with what they had coming back — and coming up — this could still be “their year.”

And then each went out and made it so.

Salamanca, with upperclassmen Skyla Dowdy and Leilene McComber now leading the way, went 18-7, won the Class B2 championship and marched all the way to the Far West Regional. The Fillmore boys, meanwhile, with a roster that featured just one senior and a seventh-grader sixth man, ripped off an 18-4 campaign punctuated by a 36-point victory in the Section 5 Class D title contest.

From there, the similarities only go further.

Both teams essentially went unchallenged in sectional play (Salamanca won by an average of 23 points, Fillmore by 29). Both claimed its first sectional crowns in over a decade — Salamanca since 2012, the Eagles since 2010. Both came within a game of reaching the state final four. And both steadfastly believed from the beginning that these seasons, which rank among the best in their programs’ histories, could be achieved.

“Even after (a sectional semifinal loss in 2024), I was telling people, ‘we’re gonna be even better next year,’ and people just couldn’t get past the loss of Zach, like how is that possible?” said Crouch, who noted that Sisson was a unique talent and the program’s “bellcow” of the previous few years.

“But I knew that Jonah (Bialek) and Cam (Mucher, both sophomores) were ready to step into leadership roles and that we had other guys that were gonna step into that lineup that were ready to fill those roles and then some, and that came to fruition.”

Said Hinman of his Warriors: “I just think last year, those Big 30 allstars … they really laid the foundation for this team, and this team just took another step and set the new standard for the program. We could see from the start that this year’s team was looking forward to the season and embracing the opportunity to pick up where they left off.”

For each, the 2024-25 campaign marked his major breakthrough as a varsity head coach. Indeed, Hinman went from 8-14 in his first season to 17-5 with a semifinal appearance in year two to 18 victories and a 51-32 triumph over Wilson in the B2 final this winter. Crouch, meanwhile, in year six, got his team over the metaphorical hump after four-straight sectional semifinal losses.

And for that both were rewarded, and deservingly so, with Hinman earning the Margie Holland Award as Big 30 Girls Coach of the Year and Crouch garnering the Thomas K. Oakley Memorial Award as Boys Coach of the Year.

Want one more correlation between them?

It’s the first time that someone from either the Salamanca girls or Fillmore boys programs were cited with the area’s top coaching honor.

“It’s special. It’s something that you can’t put into words,” Hinman said. “I think it’s ultimately a reflection of our staff, community, our program and just the relationships that we built this year on trust with the kids, with our staff. It was incredible. It was probably the most enjoyable experience that I’ve had coaching in my short time.”

For Crouch, the announcement was also gratifying. As a player at Fillmore, he “never merited consideration” for the Big 30 all-star team. As a coach, though, he’s now followed in the footsteps of Whitesville’s Doug Van Skiver, Cuba-Rushford’s Gary Wight and other Allegany County coaching legends as a COY winner.

“To have your name added to that list certainly is meaningful for me as someone who grew up reading the Times Herald and got all his sports information from the Times Herald,” the Fillmore alumnus noted. “It validates all of the work that we’ve put in trying to build the basketball program.”

To him, like Hinman, the award is a manifestation of the talent with which he’s been blessed to work.

“I’ve been working on building this for six years and … I don’t want to say it’s a culmination because culmination sounds like a terminal thing,” Crouch said, “but we’re reaping the rewards of the hard work and have kids who have bought in and it’s kind of that nexus of talent and hard work, so it’s gratifying to have that kind of reveal itself this year, and hopefully it’s something we can continue next year.” For both Hinman and Crouch, there were moments of clarity about what their squads might be able to accomplish this year, checkpoints at which they went from good to great, from status quo to something special.

On Feb. 3, Salamanca dropped a narrow 51-45 decision to eventual league champion Southwestern to fall to 9-6. But though it ended in defeat, it triggered something inside the Warriors, who closed the regular season with fivestraight hard-fought victories and turned that into an eight-game win streak in the playoffs.

“It seemed like a typical regular season for us,” Hinman said. “It seemed like, ‘oh, this is just another year.’ But once the playoffs hit, our players just really stepped it up big time. We got into some close games later in the year; the last five games were all within one or two points. But our girls showed how battle- tested they were, and in years past we might have just laid down and not been in those games.

He added: “We really saw a different side with this (team). It started with our defense, just kind of rolling with the identity of defense is gonna win us these games and that’s what our culture has to be (and it was, as, through a Class B crossover win over Newfane, Salamanca allowed an average of just 35.5 points in the postseason).”

For prolific Fillmore, which scored 71 or more points on 15 occasions, there might not have been a specific turning point; Crouch’s team mostly steamrolled its way to another 17-3 finish. No, the Eagles’ critical juncture came in the offseason, when they set out to prove that, despite Sisson’s absence, there would be no step back.

“I saw what the kids were doing in practice,” Crouch said. “Jonah and Cam are just really, really special, but the surrounding cast was all putting in the work too, and I just knew that if those guys continued to develop the way I had seen them develop, that when they got their opportunity this year … “There were some difficult times in Zach’s senior year where there were some guys (seventh, eighth, ninth in the rotation) bristling a little bit because they wanted more (playing) time. I kept telling them: be patient, your time’s gonna come, next year we’re gonna need you. And I knew those guys were gonna put in the work last offseason.”

In the end, both Salamanca and Fillmore met — or perhaps even exceeded — expectations, and might have even surprised a few people along the way. But it wasn’t only what they accomplished this year that set their teams, and coaches, apart.

It’s how they did it. Hinman transformed a program that went 0-11 during the COVIDshortened 2020-21 season into a sectional title winner and, with an impressive crop of underclassmen, highlighted by freshmen Maliyah Foster, perhaps an annual contender in the future. Behind Crouch, Fillmore has become a powerhouse, going 93-27 over the last six seasons, including a 37-7 mark over the last two years (and they’ll return all but one player next season).

And that only solidified their case for Coach of the Year accolades.

“It’s really been brickby- brick, trying to instill that success in our DNA,” said Hinman, who earned COY honors over Port Allegany’s Jamie Evens and Fillmore’s Tom Parks. “But it just feels good to see that progress.

“The kids are having a good time, they’re enjoying it. Especially this year, it was special; it’s something that nobody can take away from them. We want to keep that feeling moving forward and make more unforgettable memories and keep cementing our legacy within not only Salamanca athletics, but the Big 30 as well.”

Said Crouch, who edged Otto-Eldred’s Derrick Francis and Bolivar-Richburg’s Justin Thomas for the award: “I’m super proud of these guys and I’m so blessed to be their coach. One of the things we talk about is I put some bullet points up on the board before every game and I always say, ‘make each other better, be Fillmore basketball.’ This group has done that every step of the way and I couldn’t be prouder. To sit here and witness the Fillmore basketball program evolve into this is really gratifying for me.”