Plum, Riverview basketball teams benefit from summer league games

By: Michael Love
Saturday, July 19, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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When Dave Pucka wrapped up his first year as Plum’s boys basketball coach in February, he looked to the offseason for opportunities for his team to build for the upcoming season and the goal of returning to the WPIAL playoffs after a several-year hiatus.

Open gyms in May flowed into summer league games with the Pittsburgh Basketball Club at Gateway High School and shootouts at LaRoche College.

Pucka said a strong foundation has been put in place for the 2025-26 Mustangs, who will replace three starters, including all-stars Max Grice and Will Beckner.

“The things you learn by playing together on a regular basis are invaluable,” Pucka said. “One of the things my coaches and I tried to stress right from the start in the first open gym is to maximize the time we have together. Whether we won or loss in the summer league, we tried to pull positives away to work on when the summer league ended and we kept going in the open gyms.

“For us here, it’s about continued growth. The seniors from last year left a legacy that we are going to be competitive, and these seniors, now it’s their chance to up that bar and continue pushing forward and to grow.”

The PBC league featured some of the most competitive teams in the WPIAL. Plum saw action against the host Gators, North Allegheny, Elizabeth Forward, Woodland Hills and Franklin Regional.

“The directors do a great job running it. It’s very organized,” Pucka said. “They make sure everyone works against some good competition. You get to see so many different styles of play.”

Last year, Plum had one varsity team in summer league play. This year, there was a varsity and a JV team. Next year, he hopes to add a ninth-grade team.

Pucka said Plum will be a part of PBC and LaRoche Shootout leagues in the fall.

“We will play a lot of basketball in the fall,” he said.

Plum finished this past season 8-14 overall and 4-8 in Section 2-5A. Rising seniors Owen Proskin and Mehki Samuels both are back hoping to lead the Mustangs to the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

“In all my years of coaching, Owen might be one of the best athletes I’ve ever coached,” Pucka said. “He’s one of those guys who played a big role for us last year, and he seldom came out of games. This year, we’re looking to increase his role even more. He’s embraced that. He is such a competitor.

“With him being a highly successful track star, I told his family that I want to make his decision difficult on what he wants to do at the next level, whether that be basketball or track. I want him to love (basketball), be great at it and have him get the college attention he deserves.

“Mehki is coming back strong after his first year as a starter on varsity. He understands that he is going from a role player to someone who will have the ball more often in important situations. His confidence level from last year to now has gone through the roof, and we love that.”

Raiders on court at Aquinas

The Riverview boys basketball team began play in the Aquinas Academy summer league last Wednesday. Second-year Raiders coach Dre Corbin said he saw a lot of good things in his team’s two games as it continues to build from previous open gyms and scrimmages while also continuing to lay a foundation for the upcoming season.

“We have them playing together in as many game situations as possible,” Corbin said. “We were in this Aquinas league last year, and we wanted to come back because we knew the quality of teams and the different styles of play we would face. That is important for us wanting to be a well-rounded team. We want teams to be able to throw a lot at us.”

The Raiders will be led into the 2025-26 season by a quartet core of rising seniors — Ben Franciscus, Prince Govan, Rex Roberts and Miles Sigal.

Corbin said he’s happy with the time his players have dedicated to the cause from April until now. The spring, he said, was a time when some of the players also were focused on their spring sports or other activities.

“Some days it worked well, and other days we had just a handful of guys,” he said.

“They would all come in when they were able. When baseball ended, lot of those guys were back with us as well.”

Riverview is coming off a season where it went 8-13 overall and 6-8 in a deep Section 1-2A. The Raiders took fifth in the section, one game away from a spot in the WPIAL playoffs.

Corbin said he is happy with the numbers for workouts which often are affected in the summer with work commitments, vacations, travel baseball and players attending other workout sessions for upcoming fall sports.

“You always want more and to get as may guys out there as possible to prepare for the season which will be here before we know it,” Corbin said.

“We had a youth camp that we ran last month, and a lot of the guys came out and volunteered there, too. That was great to see them give of their time to help the future of the program.”

Corbin said the mission for the team this summer has been to work on creating more for themselves off the dribble with ball handling against a live defense that brings a lot of pressure.

“It might sound obvious, but we’ve wanted them to get up a lot of shots,” Corbin said.

“We lost a lot of our size with the seniors we lost from last year, so we’re going to have to be a much better shooting team than we were last season. We have been working a lot with the guys to recognize and become familiar with what will be differences with the dynamics of the team. There will be a number of changes, and it all starts in the summer with forming that foundation.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Plum, Riverview