It was quite a great season by the Staples Wreckers and that was a main storyline which highlighted the 2025-26 boys high school season for the FCIAC.
Coach Dave Goldshore’s Staples Wreckers won the FCIAC championship for the second consecutive year and they took their undefeated 23-0 record and the accompanying No. 1 seeding into the 2026 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Division I Boys Basketball Tournament.
And they came oh so close to finishing with a perfect 27-0 season and a state championship. But instead, it was a heartbreaking loss in triple overtime in the Division I state tournament final with West Haven winning that thriller, 79-72, on March 21 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville.
There were plenty of other highlights. Sam Clachko of Staples and Trumbull’s Sean Wilson both ended their superb careers with another great season as they’ve been two of the best players in the state for the last couple years.
Staples secured the No. 1 seed in the 2026 FCIAC Boys Basketball Tournament by winning all 15 conference games in the regular season and Trumbull was seeded second with its 13-2 FCIAC record.
Staples and Trumbull were joined by Ridgefield (12-3 FCIAC record), Fairfield Ludlowe (11-4), New Canaan (10-5), Fairfield Warde (10-5), Stamford (8-7) and Westhill (7-8) as the other teams in the 2026 FCIAC Boys Basketball Tournament.
Mason Tobias led a balanced scoring attack with 14 points and Clachko scored 13 points to help Staples defend its title with a 62-48 victory over Ridgefield in the FCIAC championship game at Fairfield University’s Leo D. Mahoney Arena on March 4.
Four Wreckers scored in double figures as Austin Heyer had a dozen points and Matt Corrigan added 10 points.
Jayson Genova, Ridgefield’s 6-foot-1 junior guard, poured in 27 points to lead the Tigers while Jack Winstanley scored 10 for Ridgefield.
Genova led the Tigers with 18 points in their 56-50 semifinal victory over Stamford and Clachko fired in 23 points to lead the Wreckers to a 66-51 victory over Fairfield Ludlowe.
In the FCIAC Tournament quarterfinals: Staples defeated eighth-seeded Westhill, 68-55; No. 7 Stamford upset No. 2 Trumbull by a 52-49 margin after taking a 28-20 halftime lead, No. 4 Fairfield Ludlowe nipped No. 5 New Canaan, 57-56; and No. 3 Ridgefield advanced to the semifinals with a 68-64 victory over No. 6 Warde.
Coach Goldshore’s Wreckers then won three more games in the Division I state tournament and took their 26-0 record into what became an epic triple-overtime championship game.
West Haven’s 6-foot-3 senior guard Aaron Johnson Jr. had 27 points, eight rebounds and four steals to lead the Blue Devils to their 79-72 victory in which they outscored Staples by a 6-1 margin in the decisive third overtime.
Each team scored nine points in each of the first two overtime periods after the game was tied, 48-48, when the buzzer sounded to end the fourth quarter.
Tobias scored 21 points to lead the Wreckers, Dhilan Lowman sank five 3-pointers and had 17 points, while Corrigan (13) and Clachko (12) were also in double figures.
West Haven (23-4) and Staples (26-1) were ranked 1-2 in the Final 2026 GametimeCT Boys Basketball Top 10 Poll in which Staples was the only FCIAC team in the Top 10.
Goldshore resigned a few weeks after the end of the season after an excellent four-year stint as the Staples head coach. He had an .817 winning percentage with his 85-19 record.
And, yes, he was selected as the Coach of the Year in the FCIAC.
Sean Wilson, Trumbull’s 6-foot-3 senior guard, was the conference’s Player of the Year for the second straight year. He averaged 22.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists this year and finished with 1,303 points in his career.
He was joined on the seven-player All-FCIAC Boys Basketball First Team by Sam Clachko and Mason Tobias of Staples, Ridgefield’s Jayson Genova, Stamford’s Jordan Sutton, Fairfield Ludlowe’s Carlo Noecker and New Canaan’s Henry Chandra.
Wilson and Clachko were the two conference players among the 12 total selected for the 2025-2026 GametimeCT All-State Boys Basketball First Team.
Genova, Sutton and Tobias were chosen for GametimeCT All-State Boys Basketball Second Team and Noecker made GametimeCT All-State Boys Basketball Third Team.
The Connecticut High School Coaches Association categorizes its all-state teams by the divisions in which the players’ teams are in for the state tournaments.
Clachko, Genova and Sutton were three of the 13 players chosen to the CHSCA Division I All-State Team. Wilson and Chandra were both among the 14 players on the CHSCA Division II All-State Team.
There were 26 players who were all-conference selections on either the First Team, Second Team, Third Team, and All Defensive Team. The complete list of those players is on the link below:
https://www.fciac.net/1213874/all-fciac-boys-basketball-2026/