CCS’ Bryce Spaulding looks to improve on record-breaking freshman season
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The final buzzer sounded, and every player walked off the court as if everything were normal. Copenhagen Central School’s boys’ varsity basketball team had just defeated Belleville Henderson’s squad 70-47 on Jan. 24, 2026. They had no idea the game was anything but normal. That a record that stood for 22 years had been broken.
That the man who broke it wasn’t even aware of it yet.
Bryce Spaulding, Copenhagen’s star guard, had just scored 45 points, breaking the school’s previous single-game record by one point. Records are broken all the time — though this one isn’t — and they’re typically broken by upperclassmen who’ve been with their program for years. Bryce, however, was a freshman.
It hasn’t taken long for Bryce to become a force to be reckoned with at Copenhagen. A two-sport athlete, he made the varsity boys’ soccer and basketball teams as an eighth grader. He’s scored 47 goals in three seasons for Copenhagen’s soccer team, but he broke out on the court last year, when he led the Knights with 434 total points — 79 more than the next-best scorer — and broke that aforementioned decades-old record.
And he did it all as a freshman.
“Bryce is one of those kids anyone would want to coach,” said Scott Connell, Copenhagen Central School’s superintendent and the Spauldings’ longtime family friend. “You know whatever team he’s playing on is going to be successful.”
Copenhagen Central School is situated in Copenhagen, New York, with an average class size of 25. Bryce comes from a long line of Copenhagen alumni. His father, his aunts and uncles all attended Copenhagen. His grandmother works the front desk in the main office.
His uncle, Logan Spaulding, coaches Copenhagen’s basketball team. “I don’t think he’d describe me as the fun uncle,” Logan said. “I make sure to hold him accountable.”
Athletic excellence runs deep in the Spaulding family. Logan’s also Copenhagen’s athletic coordinator and soccer coach, following his time playing soccer at Cazenovia College. Another uncle, Marcus Spaulding, attended Niagara University to play baseball and became its ace pitcher.
Bryce Spaulding goes for a right-handed layup. Last season, Spaulding broke Copenhagen Central School’s single-game scoring record with 45 points against Belleville Henderson on Jan. 24. Courtesy of Melissa Jordal
Before Logan became Copenhagen’s athletic director, Connell held the role. Even now, Connell attends all the school’s athletic events and never misses Bryce’s games. Connell coached all of Bryce’s uncles and has known Bryce since he was born.
Everyone who knows Bryce describes him as someone who prefers to fly under the radar. “Bryce, for the most part, is kind of a shy, quiet kid,” Tyler Spaulding, Bryce’s father, said. “He just keeps to himself.”
That description doesn’t match his on-court demeanor.
“Bryce has no problem taking a game over when he knows it’s necessary to do that,” Connell said.
It’s that silent confidence that gives Bryce an advantage over many opponents. His father said he always makes sure to uplift the members of his team after a big win, choosing to focus on how they all contributed. Entering his sophomore year, his peers on Copenhagen’s soccer team voted him a captain.
But he doesn’t keep an inflated ego, either. It would be easy for him to, coming off a freshman season where he scored 21.7 points per game and broke a 22-year-old record, but he prefers to keep a chip on his shoulder.
“If he hears something, or if someone is just putting him down, or someone just doesn’t think he is as good as what he thinks he is, I think in his mind he tries to prove them wrong,” Tyler said. “It kinda fuels his fire and makes him want to try harder.”
Connell says there are two kinds of kids: Those who treat people as if they’re better than everybody, and those who don’t think they’re very good at all. He thinks Bryce is firmly in the latter category and that he doesn’t even realize he’s all that talented.
But he is. Connell knows it; he’s seen it firsthand. There was the record-breaking 45-point game, yes, but there were other plays where he made something special look utterly routine.
Connell recounts one where Bryce was dribbling the ball, and another defender came over to take him. Bryce’s defender got in front of him, another one stepped in to cut his path off, and the freshman split the two seniors effortlessly by dribbling the ball between one’s legs. It stands out to Connell because, he says, it isn’t something one can practice. It’s as innate as waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, going in the shower — stuff you don’t even think about.
“It was a reaction,” Connell said. “Like, ‘Wow, he’s in ninth grade, and he’s splitting two senior defenders with a ball between his legs.’”
There was nothing Connell could say. He just shook his head when he saw it.
