The loss of three starters from last year’s team certainly will be felt when the Moon Area Tigers tip off their 2025-26 season at 8 p.m. Saturday at home against Imani Christian.
Guard Amir Turner and forwards Michael Santicola and Carter Tumulty took plenty of firepower with them when they graduated and at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-5, respectively, Santicola and Tumulty took plenty of size.
The fact that Moon reached the semifinals of the WPIAL football playoffs didn’t help either, as the lengthy season kept several key players from joining coach Gino Palmosina’s basketball squad.
“Football ran a little late, so we’re still getting our feet wet with some of our guys,” Palmosina said, referring to returning starters A.J. Buford and Braeden Stuart and two other returnees – Max Harkins and Dublin Jacoby.
“We’ve seen some promising things early in the preseason,” Palmosina continued. “We have some size, athleticism and speed. The question is, can we put it all together from a chemistry standpoint? We’ve only had (the football players) for seven practices. So time will tell.”
The 6-2 Buford and 6-1 Stuart both figure to slot in at guard while the 6-0 Jacoby and the 6-2 Harkins will see action at forward.
The Tigers received a huge boost last spring when brothers Jackson and Brody Bauman moved into the district from Knoch High School.
Jackson Bauman, a 6-1 senior guard, was a first-team all-section selection last year and a key performer on a Knoch team that finished fifth in the WPIAL Class 4A tournament and reached the PIAA playoffs for the first time since 2006.
Brody Bauman, a 5-11 junior guard, was a key reserve on that team as a sophomore.
“Jackson is one of the better guards in the area, quite frankly,” Palmosina said. “And Brody is coming along – he’s a super high-IQ kid. Both of them are gym rats.”
The Tigers also will count on 5-10 senior Caden Kopay to handle point guard duties; he missed much of last season with an ankle injury. Moon also returns 6-5 senior Caleb Waclawski, who moved into the starting lineup when Kopay went down with his injury.
Last year’s Tigers team wound up 19-8, finishing seventh in the WPIAL tournament by beating Penn-Trafford after losing to Chartiers Valley in the quarterfinals and then falling to Greater Latrobe in their first consolation bracket contest.
Moon reached the PIAA tournament but lost to Greater Johnstown in the opening round.
Palmosina wouldn’t classify last season as a failure.
“We definitely had some bright spots,” he said. “But we didn’t accomplish some of the goals we wanted to accomplish. We talked about things during the offseason and we’ll take another crack at getting it done.”
Palmosina said the fact that the Bauman brothers moved into the district in April was a major plus.
“We started our offseason workouts in mid-April, so they got accustomed to how things operate pretty quickly,” he said. “They’ve had a great offseason for us.”
Palmosina said his team has a challenging early season schedule, starting Saturday with Class 6A Imani Christian, which finished second in its section last year.
“They’ll be a good test for us,” he said before practice Wednesday. “We feel good about our group – but I’ll have a better answer in about a hundred hours.”
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