Surrounded by his family, Gates Chili's Keith Slack inks his letter of intent to Daemen

MacDonald Announces Five Freshmen Commits

7/30/2019 4:30:00 PM

By: By Mike Miranto, Sr. Associate A.D. for External Operations & Communications

AMHERST, N.Y. - Five freshmen student-athletes are set to join the Daemen College men's basketball team for the 2019-20 season, head coach Mike MacDonald announced today. The newcomers include Western New York natives Justin Poumpey (Buffalo, N.Y.) and Keith Slack (Rochester, N.Y.), as well as Central New Yorker Ryan Salzberg (Manlius, N.Y.), Big Apple product Josiah Chandler (New York, N.Y.) and Garden State native Pat Higgins (Pennington, N.J.).

"Our freshmen class has guys who love to play basketball and are competitors. We felt we needed to address the depth of our back court and we think with this group we did that. We only have two returning guards with Jay Sarkis and Breon Harris, so it was important for us to bring in some guys who can play now and in the future," said MacDonald, the 2018-19 East Coast Conference Coach of the Year who is entering his sixth season on the Daemen bench.

Poumpey is a 5-foot-10 point guard who comes to Daemen after completing his prep career at Saint Francis High School in Athol Springs less than 20 miles from the Main Street campus. Poumpey helped coach Brian Ferris turn the Red Raiders into one of the top teams in the Msgr. Martin Athletic Association. A two-time All-Catholic First Team selection, Poumpey also earned honorable mention All-Western New York honors this past winter when he led the Red Raiders to a 13-11 record.

A 5-foot-7 combo guard, Slack will join the Wildcats after a stellar career at Gates Chili High School that saw him earn team MVP honors as a sophomore, junior and senior. His finest season came this past winter when he earned All-Greater Rochester and Monroe County Division II Co-Player of the Year accolades. Slack scored 40 or more points five times as a senior, including a 47-point outing in the Section V Class AA semifinals, Gates Chili's furthest sectional playoff advancement in 10 seasons. Averaging 21.2 points per game, Slack was a Class AA All-State 11th Team selection by the New York State Sportswriters Association. He becomes the first Gates Chili player to choose Daemen since all-time great Gerald Beverly did so as a member of the the Wildcats' 2011 recruiting class.

Bringing some size to the backcourt is the 6-foot-4 Salzberg. After starting his prep career at his local Fayetteville-Manlius High School, Salzberg finished up at Bridgton Academy, a prestigious prep school in Western Maine. According to the New England Recruiting Report, Salzberg is the number 10 prospect coming out of Maine in the class of 2019. He was named Bridgton's team MVP and was an honorable mention All-NEPSAC selection this past winter.

Chandler comes in as a 6-foot guard after prepping at LaSalle Academy in Manhattan. Competing in New York City's uber-competitive Catholic High School Athletic Association, Chandler earned All-CHSAA First Team honors this past winter when he avergaed 17.4 points per game while leading the Cardinals to a 21-15 record. He would go on to be named to the Class A All-State Eighth Team.

Rounding out the freshmen recruiting commitments is Higgins, a 5-foot-10 point guard who earned four varsity letters while playing at The Pennington School in Central New Jersey. In his time there, Higgins was a two-time All-Prep First Team pick while totaling 1,397 points for his career. This past winter, Higgins averaged 22.5 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game.

The five freshmen-to-be join a quartet of transfer signees - Southern Connecticut State's Joey Wallace (Rochester, N.Y.), California of Pennsylvania's Donte' Williams (Buffalo, N.Y.), Jefferson's Joey Atkins (Watervliet, N.Y.) and Niagara County Community College's Chris Luke (Cortland, N.Y.) - whose commitments were announced last week. Together, the nine newcomers join a Daemen program that has posted a 105-43 record over the last five seasons, racking up the second-most amount of wins for any NCAA Division II program in New York State. Ten players, including four starters, are set to return after helping the Wildcats go 24-6 overall in 2018-19, a season that included the program's second ECC regular season championship and first-ever NCAA tournament berth.

The Wildcats' 2019-20 season gets underway in late October with exhibition tilts against the University at Buffalo (Oct. 24) and Syracuse University (Oct. 26), before opening the regular season against defending Division II national champions Northwest Missouri State University at the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic on Nov. 1.

Daemen College features the only NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 17 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.

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