The high school basketball season really gets into swing this weekend as area teams are playing in tournaments and against non-league opponents.
The biggest event of all is taking place all the way in Olean at the Olean Tip-off Tournament.
The Batavia boys will be taking on defending New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class C champion Maple Grove in the opening round tonight. The Red Dragons beat Mechanicville 71-46 in the state finals last year and ended up with a 25-2 final record in winning the title.
Maple Grove is led by junior guard Chris Secky, who has already scored over 1,000 points in his varsity career.
If Batavia can get past Maple Grove, they will get the winner of the Olean/Hornell game in the finals tomorrow.
Hornell went 17-5 last season and lost to Freddie Thomas in the Section 5 Class BB semifinals last year. The Red Raiders are led by Kyle Murphy and Joe Mauro, who return after being reserves last season. All five starters from a year ago graduated.
Olean is the defending Class B state champion.
The Huskies beat Malverne 63-53 in those finals and return just one starter, point guard Joe Palumbo. Olean finished 25-3 last season.
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There is also a nice set of non-league contests to be played Friday night as Holley hosts Greece Odyssey, Albion is at Elba and Le Roy is at York.
The Olean finals aren't the only big ones this weekend.
Oakfield-Alabama will be playing Barker in the championship game at the Barker Tournament. The Hornets kicked off their season with a 60-51 win over Holland last night.
Lyndonville, which lost to Barker in the opening round, will be playing Barker in the consolation game.
The other game Saturday is Genesee Valley at Alexander as the Trojans look to get win No. 1 on the season.
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The Oakfield-Alabama girls will be playing in the Geneseo Tournament this weekend, with a game against the host squad tonight.
Pembroke will be playing in the Alden Tournament this weekend.
The finals for both of those games will be Saturday night.
Le Roy will be hosting York, Holley is at Medina, Byron-Bergen is at Churchville-Chili and Warsaw is at Wheatland-Chili tonight in non-league games Friday night.
The big game of the weekend will take place Saturday night at Genesee Community College as Elba and Batavia will play in the finals of the Elba/GCC Tournament. Batavia beat Albion 39-29 and Elba downed Attica 56-23 in opening round games last night.
