The Old Forge basketball programs are entering into a season of transition.
Jared Yaniello resigned as boys coach not long after the Blue Devils made a surprise run to the Class 2A semifinals of the pandemic-altered Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state basketball tournament in March.
The off-season death of Ron Stacchiotti after Tom Gatto had come out of the retirement to run the team last season while Stacchiotti was undergoing cancer treatment, left the girls program in need of new leadership.
Two experienced assistants take over as head coaches.
J.J. Thomas, who had assisted Yanniello the last eight seasons, is the new boys coach. In addition to serving as assistant varsity and head junior varsity coach under Yanniello, Thomas had also been a volunteer assistant to former coach Al Semenza.
Pete Sulla, a long-time assistant in the boys program, takes over as head coach of the girls team, replacing the two men who each led the Lady Devils to one state championship game appearance.
Thomas and Sulla each face challenges.
The boys team returns just one starter.
The girls program is operating with only eight players after heavy graduation losses and will not play a junior varsity schedule.
Thomas, a three-year varsity team member and two-year starter during his playing days at Old Forge, was a starter as a junior on the 2006-07 team that went 28-1 and lost in the state quarterfinals to Reading Central Catholic.
Yanniello resigned in April and Thomas was hired in May.
“We did a lot of summer workouts,” Thomas said. “We played a lot of games. We traveled and a lot and we were in the Riverfront (Sports) summer league (in Scranton).
“ … It was nice to get the guys out, especially to play some different opponents and to get them ready to play.”
The Blue Devils players also attended camps together at East Stroudsburg and Alvernia.
Mario Samony, one of 5-6 players on the team still active in the state football playoffs going into this weekend, is the only returning starter.
Aidan Davitt was a key reserve, particularly in the state tournament.
Sulla has more than two decades of experience as an assistant, all but one of which was on the boys side, beginning with serving under three head coaches at Wyoming Area, where he coached on the junior high, freshman and junior varsity levels.
For the last seven years, Sulla has coached the seventh- and eighth-grade boys at Old Forge while also assisting with the varsity. He also kept a close eye on the girls program and its successes.
“It’s a tight-knit community,” Sulla said. “I went through school one year behind coach Stacchiotti and he was best friends with my brother, so he and I were pretty close.”
Sulla also offered a bit of help to the girls program at times.
“We started conditioning early in the summer and what we’ve done is worked really hard on fundamentals,” Sulla said. “The girls are getting better every day, which means a lot.
“We know what direction we have to head to.”
Olivia Ciullo, an all-state forward and 1,000-point scorer, is now playing as a freshman at Susquehanna University while Lindsey Welsh is a sophomore at nationally ranked DeSales University.
“We only have one senior and we’re trying to figure out where points are going to come from,” Sullo said.
Sophomore Talia Piragas is the top returning scorer and Brooke Arnold, the lone senior, was the team’s top 3-point shooter last season.
