12-20-19 WPIAL Boys Basketball Key Notes

Rodney Gallagher is becoming one of the WPIAL's most talked about athletes as he is standing on a basketball court.

SOURCE: Twitter, @RodneyGallaghe6

Pine Richland’s 82-44 win against Seneca Valley showed that Jeff Ackermann’s Pine-Richland team will not have a problem beating teams that are ranked worst than them. This is the third straight win for the Rams as they will play Franklin Regional tomorrow at Pine-Richland. Both of Pine-Richland’s losses were against Penn Hills and Mt. Lebanon. If the Rams can find a way to win games against teams that are evenly matched against them, you can see them play in the Petersen Events Center in late February or early March.

Butler’s 61-51 win over North Allegheny indicates that we should all be impressed that the Tigers were able to make this a game.

Blaine Gartley and Jake Hoffman might have not had the spotlight for Mt. Lebanon in the 2018-19 WPIAL basketball season. However, with Hayden Mitchell, Mike Palmer, and Sean Loughran now graduated from Mt. Lebanon, these two have their chance to shine and they were able to do that tonight in an 86-81 win at Baldwin. Gartley scored 24 points while Hoffman scored 20 for the Blue Devils. Perhaps, the Blue Devils can really repeat as WPIAL 6A Boys Basketball champions.

Chartiers Valley has won three straight games, all section games. They defeated Thomas Jefferson, tonight, by a score of 56-51. For the Colts, Jared Goldstrom scored 22 points and Brayden Reynolds scored 20 points. Thomas Jefferson now has an overall record of 3-4, but they still have a section record of 2-1.

Not that many people expect to see Moon repeat as PIAA 5A Boys Basketball champions, but they are putting up fights in the games that they play. Tonight, they lost to South Fayette by a score of 50-41 as Moon’s overall record is now 1-3. Last season, Moon had a total of 2 losses and that is including the regular season, WPIAL playoffs, and PIAA playoffs.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette high school sports writer, Mike White, predicted that Penn Hills would defeat Laurel Highlands in Friday’s matchup. Penn Hills did win by a score of 74-71, but only by 3 points as the game went into overtime. Penn Hills outscored Laurel Highlands 9-6 in overtime. Penn Hills basketball players, Wes Kropp and Kyree Mitchell combined for 37 points in this win. Rodney Gallagher put up another 20-piece tonight as he scored 26 points for Laurel Highlands. Gallagher is the real deal and the fact that he almost led his team to a win, against one of the highly ranked WPIAL 5A teams in Penn Hills, is impressive.

Shaler continues to stay hot with a 65-36 win against section opponent, Indiana. Mekhi Reynolds scored 31 points in this game as he continuously tries to prove to us that he is Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Boys Basketball Fab 5 material.

When you think of Shady Side Academy Boys Basketball, the first name you might think of is Mason Tomlin. He scored 11 points tonight in Shady Side Academy’s 66-58 win over Valley. However, Junior Grady Munroe scored 28 points for the Indians in tonight’s game. Valley is now 0-7, overall, this season.

Highlands whooped Yough by a score of 86-30. Highlands continues to show people that they deserve to be highly ranked in 4A as their overall record is now 6-1.

Tonight, in Isiah Warfield’s first home game as a Central Valley Warrior, he scored 16 points; but Central Valley lost to Quaker Valley by a score of 72-64. The Quakers remain undefeated with an overall record of 5-0. K.C. Johns and Jack Gardiner both scored 19 points for the Quakers.

Ringgold’s Boys baseball team gets talked about a lot, but their Boys basketball team should get a lot of attention as well. Tonight, they defeated Elizabeth Forward by a score of 68-67 as they improve their overall record to 5-1.

After being down by a score of 42-31 at halftime, Carlynton outscored Avonworth in the second half, 49-35, to win the game by a score of 80-77. Chauncie Mickens scored 30 points for Carlynton in this game.

For the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, their overall record is 6-0 after beating Burgettstown tonight by a score of 87-51. Dante Spadafora and Jake DiMichele continue to dominate for the Chargers. Spadafora scored 36 points while DiMichele scored 32 tonight in this big section win.

Cornell basketball players, Kaden DiVito and Zaier Harrison combined for 45 points their 86-37 win against Rochester. Rochester only scored 2 points in the first quarter. At the end of the first quarter, the score was Cornell: 31 and Rochester:2.

Ben Jackson will be known as having one of the best rushing seasons in WPIAL football history. He rushed for 3,076 yards, this WPIAL football season, for West Greene. Jackson can also play basketball as he scored 19 points for West Greene in a 54-41 win over Avella.

BY Hilton: bythebossandgoat@gmail.com and Twitter @BYHilton13