When basketball season started way back in early November, Susquehanna Saber's head coach Lawrence Tompkins knew it may take some time to find their footing. 

Needing to replace three essential components from the varsity team last year, as the Sabers graduated three starters in 2024.

The graduates included Cooper Payne, JT Burke and Colton Stone, with the trio accounting for about 75 percent of the points Susquehanna tallied in the '23-'24 season.

The Sabers started their season splitting their first two games against a pair of Bradford County teams in the annual Bradford-Susquehanna County Challenge in Blue Ridge.

It was in their second game, a win against Wyalusing that Coach Tompkins and the Sabers were dealt their biggest surprise of the young season.

Sophomore phenom Mason Keyes suffered a broken wrist and would be sidelined for the next 12 games. Forcing Coach Tompkins to reshuffle the pieces they had, while still trying to answer questions about their young team.

The Sabers won their next two games after the injury to start their season 3-1. After that they hit their low point of the season.

Susquehanna dropped 12 of their next 13 games, getting a big win smack dab in the middle of their drought, recording a huge win at home against Lackawanna Trail.

Even though the Sabers weren't notching wins in those other 12 games, they were playing solid basketball, but coming up short as four of their losses were one possession games.

The tight losses allowed Coach Tompkins and his staff to identify the small factors in their team that was causing them to come up short.

With some great coaching from the staff and solid senior leadership from Rykin Hobart, the Sabers found one of the missing ingredients, which was confidence.

With Susquehanna finding their swagger and the return of Keyes they played their best basketball of the season down the stretch.

Winning four of their last five games of the season, with all four wins by double digits. Three of those wins were against teams that had beaten them earlier in the season.

The Sabers only loss came at the hands of the Lackawanna League Division III Champions Elk Lake. Losing a well played back and forth contest 59-55.

Susquehanna finished the regular season with an 8-14 record, earning the sixth seed entering playoffs.

The Sabers lost 47-34 in the opening round to the red hot Lions of Lackawanna Trail. Susquehanna had bested the Lions in their two regular season matchups.

Keyes led the team in PPG, averaging 15.1, fellow sophomore Griffin Fisk was right behind him averaging 13.7 per contest. Hobart the lone senior starter for Coach Tompkins averaged 8.1 per game.

A trio of Sabers collected 100 rebounds on the season, with Hobart leading the way with 145, Fisk grabbed 111 caroms and Jordan Burke hauled in 102.

Hudson Stengel handed out the most assists, totaling 111 on the season, Fisk dished out 51 and Linden Baker added 27.

Fisk, Jaxon Downton and Keyes hit the most three pointers, finishing the season with 41, 27 and 21 respectively.

Defensively Fisk snatched a team high 44 steals, Stengel notched 25 and Keyes had 21. Keyes led the team with 37 deflections, Stengel got a paw on 28 and Downton and Baker tied for third with 27 apiece.

Baker and Downton finished one, two on the squad in blocks. Baker had 24, Downton finished with 17 and Keyes stuffed 10 shots.

Coach Tompkins realizes there is still work to be done, but with the Sabers returning four of their five starters the Sabers should be a force to be reckoned with in the league next year.

"I am proud of the growth that was shown by our team this year. This upcoming offseason is big for each of the returning players individually and as a collective unit. We are looking forward to the challenge of building a team that can compete for the division championship next year," Tompkins stated.