When the Baldwinsville varsity boys basketball team gathers next month and begins practices for the 2018-19 season, a familiar face will be in charge.
B’ville tapped Mike Lewis, the program’s junior varsity head coach, to take over the varsity team, replacing Tim Solomon, who led the Bees the last nine seasons.
During Solomon’s tenure, the B’ville program organized itself at all levels, yet the teams only won 61 out of 174 games and never made it past the quarterfinal round of the Section III Class AA playoffs.
Now, after coaching JV for three of those seasons and also serving as an assistant girls basketball coach at B’ville, the 30-year-old Lewis gets a chance to turn things around.
And Lewis isn’t even the youngest varsity coach in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division, with Fayetteville-Manlius naming 26-year old SUNY-Oswego assistant Luke Tucci to replace Jason Dudzniski.
B’ville has a strong returning roster that includes J.J. Starling, Jacob Marshall and Sunday Joshua. Starling and Marshall combined to average more than 31 points per game a season ago.
The Bees’ season begins Nov. 27 against New Hartford, with a Nov. 30 appearance in the Peppino’s Invitational at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena against Bishop Grimes.
