Chartiers Valley Boys Basketball Is Fun To Watch
Brayden Reynolds runs on the basketball court during a regular season game against West Allegheny back on February 7, 2020.
SOURCE: TRIB LIVE HSSN
The Chartiers Valley Boys basketball team had their 2019-20 PIAA season end today as they lost to Milton Hershey by a score of 78-74 in the first round of the PIAA 5A Boys basketball tournament. The Colts had a pretty strong season even though they did not end the season with a WPIAL or PIAA title. The team was able to earn a section championship as they finished first place in WPIAL Class 5A Section 2 with a 13-1 section record. Their overall record was 19-6 as out of their six losses, only two of them were against WPIAL teams, Trinity and Mars. Their other four losses were against non-WPIAL teams in Allderdice, Evangelical Christian School (Florida), Lehigh High School (Florida), and Milton Hershey.
Joe Pipilo and Tyler Shaw were two players that started on Chartiers Valley Boys basketball team last season. They both graduated in June 2019 and the Colts team were still able to compete and play at a high level with players such as Marcello Legister Louie Kearney becoming starters and getting more playing time. What is similar between the 2018-19 Colts team and the 2019-20 Colts team is that they were both one win away from playing in the WPIAL 5A Boys basketball championship game. Both Colts teams lost to Mars in the semifinals round. In 2019, the Colts lost to Mars 53-44 while this year Colts team lost to Mars 59-50. Yes, both Colts teams lost to Mars by 9 points in the WPIAL semifinals in the past two years. That's pretty freaky.
Another thing that both of the Colts teams, from the past two seasons, have in common is that they both lost in the first round of the PIAA playoffs. In 2019, Chartiers Valley lost to York William Penn in the first round of the PIAA Class 5A Boys basketball playoffs by a score of 85-73. Then, this year's Colts team lost to Milton Hershey tonight by only four points.
Chartiers Valley started their section play with a 0-1 record after losing to Trinity at home by a score of 84-73. Then, the Colts won their next 13 section games to claim a section title. This is the first time that Chartiers Valley Boys basketball team has claimed a section title since the 2015-16 season when Tim McConnell was the head coach for the team.
The Colts have done good under head coach Brandon Sensor. He has completely finished coaching two seasons at Chartiers Valley and has an overall record of 37-13 (.740) and a section record of 24-4 (.857). If you think about it, Sensor has had some pretty impressive wins in his first two seasons as the Colts head coach. In the 2018-19 season, he was able to hand Moon their first regular season loss on February 1, 2019 as they defeated Moon by a score of 69-66 in double overtime. It was an upset win as Moon started 18-0 last season before losing at home to the Colts. Sensor was also able to defeat a Woodland Hills team by a score of 62-49 in the 2019 WPIAL Class 5A Quarterfinals when the Wolverines had the leading scorer in the WPIAL in Keandre Bowles.
Some of Chartiers Valley's most impressive wins of this season were against Mt. Lebanon (WPIAL 6A Boys basketball runner-up team), and Aliquippa. Not going to lie, it seems that the only reason why Chartiers Valley has not played in a WPIAL championship game in the past two seasons were because they have had to run into a Mars team that is coached by Rob Carmody and led by a star Notre Dame football recruit in Michael Carmody. Think about this, if Chartiers Valley never had to run into Mars in the semifinals, the Colts might have seen themselves in the Petersen Events Center with perhaps a championship or two.
The Colts had five seniors this season and they will all graduate in late May. The Colts should have 11 players from this year's team return next season and one of them is Brayden Reynolds. He led the team in points per game in the regular season with 18.8. This season, Reynolds was featured as a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette athlete of the Week and has been interviewed multiple times by the media from his ability to lead the Colts to wins.
For Brandon Sensor, he has been able to lead the whole Chartiers Valley community to continue to support Chartiers Valley Boys basketball with his way of coaching. Now, he must be thinking that he needs to bring a WPIAL championship back to Chartiers Valley. How is he going to bring a WPIAL trophy back to the trophy case, that is located outside the high school's gymnasium? Well, you are just going to have to keep watching more CV Boys basketball games to find out.
Brentaro Yamane: bythebossandgoat@gmail.com and Twitter @BYHilton13