Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. Ursuline freshman guard Jaylen Gunther brings the ball up the floor against Howland on Thursday.

YOUNGSTOWN — It’s rare that freshmen are able to make an immediate impact at the varsity level.

But Ursuline has three freshmen that have each been major contributors for the Fighting Irish this season, as they’ve compiled an 18-3 record.

Jaylen Gunther and Noah Bell have been season-long starters for the Irish, with Gunther leading the team in scoring this season with 15.0 points and 5.6 assists per game.

Bell has done a little bit of everything for Ursuline, averaging 8.6 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. The third freshman, Jace Riccardo, has been a spark plug for the Irish off the bench, averaging about 4.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game.

“Just to watch those guys progress from the summer to the first game to now, they don’t play like freshmen,” head coach Keith Gunther said. “They play like they are seasoned guys.”

Down the closing stretch of the regular season, Ursuline’s freshmen have taken the next step and have made game-changing plays to help keep the Irish in the win column.

Against Howland on Thursday, Gunther took over the game offensively for the Irish in the second half, scoring 21 of his game-high 23 points after halftime. Meanwhile, Bell made a game-saving block in transition at the end of regulation that helped send the game to overtime, while also pulling down a pair of key offensive rebounds in the extra period that helped seal the victory for Ursuline.

“If you watch some of the plays they made down the stretch, I thought they were huge — they impacted the game majorly,” Keith Gunther said. “You always want your seniors to be those guys, but when you have freshmen that can do that, it makes you a really good basketball team.”

But Ursuline’s freshmen likely wouldn’t have developed the way they have if not for Ursuline’s seniors and upperclassmen — players like seniors Jaden Payne and Geno Lucente and junior Dashaun Will.

“It’s probably hard for seniors in most programs to accept freshmen in starting roles and tons of minutes, but I think Jaden and Geno have just been phenomenal with our freshmen,” Keith Gunther said. “I know (Jaylen), my son, really looks up to them and enjoys them more than anything. To have two senior leaders open up their arms and welcome them with no jealousy, it’s just huge for our program.”

The 6-foot-7 Payne has been Ursuline’s beast on the blocks, averaging 11.1 points and 8.1 rebounds per game, while on the wing, Lucente has averaged 10.5 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.

Will has been Gunther’s backcourt partner, averaging 6.2 assists to go along with 9.8 points per game. Will has also been Ursuline’s best on-ball defender, and usually draws the assignment of defending an opposing team’s best guard.

“It’s not just about one guy, it’s all about making sure we can win a game,” Keith Gunther said. “If you notice, it’s never just one key guy. It could be Geno, it could be Jaden, it could be (Jaylen), it could be Bell or it could be Dashaun Will. It could be the guys coming off the bench, (too). So we’re very fortunate that we have the camaraderie that we have and no jealousy.

“We just gotta make sure, and we’ve told them from the beginning, to make sure we keep all the outside influences away and just stay together as a team. And I thought we’ve been doing a great job of that.”

Ursuline’s overtime loss to Austintown Fitch on Feb. 2 has proven to be a turning point this season for the Irish.

Since then, Ursuline has won six straight games to end the regular season, with all but one of the wins coming against top-caliber teams with at least 15 wins, including Archbishop Hoban, Cardinal Mooney and Bristol.

The Irish needed overtime to pull out their regular season finale against Howland, but getting the job done in the extra period was just another indication of how far Ursuline had come since the Fitch game.

“I’ll be honest, I watched our guys before the game and I’m thinking they were looking forward to the tournament like most teams and it’s our last regular season game,” Keith Gunther said. “But to watch our improvement over the year after the Fitch game, we’ve become really good. Perfect example of that is, I don’t think we played really smart in the Fitch game down the stretch to close it out and I thought (against Howland) we moved the ball and played smart.”

The team’s strong finish to the regular season gives the Irish a sharp dose of momentum heading into the OHSAA postseason tournament, Ursuline earned the No. 2 seed in the Division II, Region 5, Northeast 1 district and is set to face No. 61 seed Cleveland Collinwood in the sectional opener on Tuesday.

After falling in the district championship game last season, the Irish have their sights set on returning to that point and winning their first district title since 2017, which was the last of a streak of four straight district championships for Ursuline.

“I think we’re right where we want to be,” Keith Gunther said. “We’ve won six in a row and going into the tournament, we feel really good about our bracket. We just need to fine tune, and we probably need to rest a little bit. We need to make sure we’re fresh — you don’t want to go into the tournament dead. We (watched) film (Friday), shot, took Saturday off and gameplanned for two days to get ready for our first tournament game.”

Ursuline’s tournament journey begins Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

Have an interesting story? Contact Neel Madhavan by email at nmadhavan@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NeelMadhavan.