Chartiers Valley's Brayden Reynolds Is Something Special

Chartiers Valley basketball player, Brayden Reynolds (4), celebrates after making a play against West Allegheny on Friday, Feb. 7, 2020.

SOURCE: Christopher Horner | Tribune-Review

Chartiers Valley's Boys basketball team has a star basketball player in junior Brayden Reynolds. He was something special this basketball season as his name was mentioned more in newspapers and started to get more recognition that he deserved. This past season, Reynolds helped CV to a 13-1 section record, as he led them to the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals and a trip to the PIAA 5A tournament.

For the second straight year, CV had to play Mars in the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals as they lost to Mars both times in the past two years. However, without Reynolds CV might have never made it that far without him and the terrific talent that he brings on the court. If it wasn't for Brayden's dad, he might have never gotten into the game of basketball. " My dad would take me to different basketball games around the area," Reynolds said. "I knew from going to all of those games that I wanted to make an impact on my school [Chartiers Valley] and my community."

Also, this past season Reynolds was named on the WPIAL 5A Boys' All-Section team, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Fab 5 5A Boys' Classification team. The star guard led CV in points per game this season as he averaged 19.1 PPG. Reynolds felt honored by being named on both of these teams by saying, "It was one of my goals this year, so I felt honored."

One of Brayden's most remarkable moments from this past season is when he scored 21 points in the fourth quarter in a game against West Allegheny, on Friday, Feb. 7, 2020. He scored 25 points in the game as he led his team to a 63-47 win in CV's final section game of the year. What is really remarking about this game for him, is in that fourth quarter, he scored 19 points in the final five minutes of the game as he basically scored 6 points in the first 27 minutes of the game and then all of a sudden went off. Basically, Feb,7, 2020, was Brayden Reynolds' night as his performance stood out to all people who focus on WPIAL basketball as his performance was the headline of night around the WPIAL media.

He has played under two different head coaches in his high school career. When Reynolds was a freshman in the 2017-18 season, Tim McConnell was the head coach of the Boys team at CV, he now coaches for the Girls team. Starting in Reynolds sophomore season, 2018-19, was when current CV Boys basketball head coach, Brandon Sensor took over for McConnell.

CV did not make the WPIAL playoffs in Brayden's freshman year, but they have the past two seasons in his sophomore and junior years. He has played in two PIAA Boys basketball playoff games in his high school career, one in his sophomore year and one in his junior. Both of those games turned out to be losses, but even though they did not win those games, that does not change the fact that he enjoys playing on CV's team. "I have enjoyed the atmosphere of CV. I love the locker room talk, it always has been positive, and nobody is bringing one another down, we always keep each other up. Our crowds for the games are always great. Our coaches most of all had us ready for every game this year making sure that we would be locked in everyday and we treated each day as a day to get better even if it was a shoot around we would all still be locked in," Reynolds said about his enjoyment of playing basketball at CV.

CV's Boys basketball team had five players on their team who will graduate in May 2020. With the losses of those players expect Reynolds to have even a bigger role on the team.

With COVID-19 pandemic not allowing grade school students to go to school, Reynolds has had to do some schoolwork from his home as he has kept himself busy as well during this time. You could basically say that even during this pandemic, that Reynolds has done as best as possible to get better at the sport he loves. "I have a basketball hoop in my backyard that I have been getting shots on, doing ball-handling drills, and I have been lifting weights down in my basement. Just spending quality family time is nice right now because I have a sister who’s a player too and our family is normally going to separate states traveling around the country playing AAU basketball. It’s been nice being able to be here and help my sister get better," Reynolds said.

Reynolds has one more season to win a WPIAL and PIAA title. You don't need to ask him to know that are his goals as you can see every day by the way he plays that he wants to win some medals so he can wear around his neck.

Brentaro Yamane: bythebossandgoat@gmail.com and Twitter @BYHilton13