Staff file photo / Brian Yauger. Warren JFK’s Henry Phillips puts up a layup through contact during a game last season. Phillips is one of the Eagles’ two returning starters from last season.

The 2025-26 boys basketball season will start a new era for Warren JFK.

The Eagles will have to play without all-time leading scorer Nick Ryan.

Kennedy head coach Mark Komlanc understands that there’s no one player that can replicate Ryan’s scoring, but he believes he has a group that can spread the production out.

There are two returning starters from last year’s team, senior guards Henry Phillips and Preston Geracitano. There are three other seniors in Andrew Lapolla, Santino Esposito and Anthony Georgalas who are also expected to contribute during the upcoming season.

Additionally, juniors Trevin Rinck and Andrew Totten and sophomore Joey Georgalas are also expected to be a part of the rotation.

Komlanc described his group as “fluid and flexible,” but time will be needed early in the season for the team to find its footing.

“They don’t have varsity experience, so that’s the interesting part,” Komlanc said. “There’s going to be ups and downs, but pretty much every season we have, that’s the case.

“I wouldn’t call it rebuilding, because our standards and expectations remain the same. Our kids know that, but it’s going to be kind of a feeling out process because three of these guys didn’t play varsity minutes, so the speed and physicality of it completely changes from JV to varsity, and especially at the level we want to play.”

Despite the lack of varsity minutes, the senior class still understands what to expect when playing for JFK, and it’s something the program has handled in the last couple seasons. Komlanc said Kennedy has lost 11 seniors over the last two years, so this season’s retooling of the rotation isn’t anything he hasn’t dealt with in the past.

“These guys have been here through all of that, and they’ve been here since I was hired,” Komlanc said. “While it’s gonna be a change, it’s gonna be different and we’re probably going to attack things a little bit differently, the expectations don’t change.”

The Eagles finished last season 17-10 and went undefeated to win the Portage Trail Conference. They won the district championship and advanced to the regional title, but they lost to eventual state runner-up Cornerstone Christian.

Komlanc believes he has a group that can compete for the district crown, but he’s starting with the basics.

He said the first goals are establishing roles for the players, improving and competing.

“We’ve been gifted with some great, great basketball players who can score the ball,” Komlanc said. “And what’s lost in that is the guys like Quinn Meola, Dom Ryan, Christian Swogger, Matt Wagner. Guys who do the other stuff. When you don’t have the ball, the other 90% of the game, they do those things, and they did them at an elite level.

“So it’s about establishing that identity and the roles for each one of our players, and seeing them accept that, because it’s not always about scoring points. And while everybody wants that, the fact remains, we’ve been so successful in the last nine years because we have kids who understand that it’s not about getting the limelight. It’s about making sure the team gets that limelight, no matter what that process is.”