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Chartiers Valley's Jayden Davis is a 5-foot-10 sophomore and one of many guards in the Colts' lineup. Davis is averaging 24 points per game.
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High school boys basketball notebook: Smallish Chartiers Valley winning big

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

High school boys basketball notebook: Smallish Chartiers Valley winning big

Chartiers Valley boys basketball coach Brandon Sensor was giving the heights of his starters when he got to senior guard Drew Sleva.

“He’s 6-feet-2. That’s about as tall as they make them down at Chartiers Valley,” Sensor said.

Sensor laughed a little when making the comment, but he was also simply stating fact. When it comes to size, Chartiers Valley has none. They are the Chartiers Valley Colts and not the CV Thoroughbreds.

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But when it comes to winning this season, Chartiers Valley looms large in the WPIAL.

Tara Gallupe, left, and her father, Todd, are believed to be the first father-daughter team to officiate WPIAL boys basketball games together.
Mike White
Earning their stripes: Father-daughter duo Todd and Tara Gallupe make history by officiating WPIAL boys games together

Chartiers Valley was undefeated until losing to Moon on Tuesday night. But Chartiers Valley is still 12-1 and the Post-Gazette’s No. 3-ranked team in WPIAL Class 5A. Let’s say the Colts have “guarded” optimism for the rest of the season.

“Since I’ve been here [for five seasons], I think the tallest player we’ve had was Joe Pipilo, and he was only 6-3,” Sensor said.

After going 8-15 last season, Chartiers Valley has definitely been one of the “biggest” surprises in the WPIAL this season. It was the only down season Chartiers Valley has had since Sensor took over for Tim McConnell in the 2018-19 season. His teams won at least 18 games in each of his first three seasons and he is now 89-33 overall.

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But the stature of Sensor’s players has forced him to adjust as a coach. The Colts are a bunch of guards. Chartiers Valley’s other starters are 5-foot-10 sophomore Jayden Davis, 6-foot-1 senior Brendan Cruze, 5-foot-11 freshman Danny Slizik and 6-foot-1 junior T.J. Kubicsek. Julian Semplice, a 5-foot-11 freshman, is one of the top players off the bench.

“I’ve had to change my philosophy as a coach, where we now just play ‘5 out’ on offense,” Sensor said. “We just try to develop skills in guards. On the defensive end this year, we have some guys who can really guard. But we try to use our size to our advantage by being fast and quick. Our first goal is we want to get to the rim, but we can shoot it sometimes, too.”

But Chartiers Valley’s lack of size really isn’t that unusual for a lot of teams in the WPIAL. For whatever reason, western Pennsylvania hasn’t been blessed with many talented big players over the past 30 years or so. It’s a trend that is baffling to many coaches who have been around for a while and know the history of western Pennsylvania high school basketball.

And this year, a number of the top teams in the largest classifications don’t have size.

McKeesport's Rachael Manfredo averages 14 points and 9 rebounds per game and is one of the reasons the Tigers have turned into one of the WPIAL's elite teams.
Keith Barnes
High school girls basketball notebook: McKeesport proving to be one of WPIAL's best

“There aren’t a lot of teams that have a big man who plays like a big man, like Royce Parham,” Sensor said of North Hills’ 6-foot-8 junior.

One of the “little guys” at Chartiers Valley is a big scorer. Jayden Davis is only 5-foot-10, but he is averaging 24 points per game. Davis is a sophomore who is hard to guard because of his speed and quickness. He actually is scoring less than he did a year ago, when he averaged 27 points as a freshman. But Sensor said Davis is a better player this season. Sleva is the second-leading scorer at 14 ppg and is shooting 41% from 3-point range.

“I’ve heard from other coaches and even officials how much he has improved,” Sensor said of Davis. “He’s not going 1-on-3 the whole game anymore. He’s sharing the ball and he’s scoring efficiently. Some guys who score take a ton of crazy shots. He’s doing a good job this year of picking his moments when it’s time for him, and he’s getting other teammates involved.”

WPIAL clears Montour big man

Montour has its 6-foot-9 sophomore center back on the court. The WPIAL board of directors voted last Thursday to allow Ama Sow to play once again for the Spartans.

Sow, who is from Senegal, played the first six games of the season. But the WPIAL ordered Sow to stop playing until a hearing to clear up his eligibility. After the Jan. 5 hearing, the league voted in favor of Sow.

Sow was enrolled as a student last school year at First Love Christian Academy, a tiny school in Washington, Pa., that had a basketball program (not in the WPIAL) with players from other states and even other countries. Although the school is in Washington, Sow stayed in a house in Trafford with other players, Montour coach Bill Minear said.

The basketball program at First Love folded after last season and merged with a prep school program in Scotland, Pa. Minear said Sow was ordered out of the house in Trafford along with other players. A family in the Montour district that was aware of Sow’s situation took him in last May because he had nowhere else to go and had no family in the U.S., Minear said.

Originally, the WPIAL ruled Sow eligible to play. But the WPIAL informed Montour that another school contested his transfer, so the WPIAL ordered Montour to sit him until the hearing. Sow missed four games.

New Castle’s Boice injured

New Castle is certainly a challenger for the WPIAL Class 6A championship, but the team took a big hit recently when Isaiah Boice suffered a broken foot. The injury occurred late in last Friday’s game against Butler.

Boice is New Castle’s leading scorer and was averaging 19 points per game. It is not known when he might be able to return. Without him, New Castle lost its first game of the season Tuesday to Central Catholic. Losing a player as productive as Boice is obviously a big blow to New Castle. But what complicates matters even more for the Red Hurricanes is they didn’t have much depth to begin with.

Check this out

• Armstrong senior Cadin Olsen has turned into quite the two-sport athlete. In football, Olsen, a senior quarterback, finished his football career with 7,819 yards passing, seventh-best in WPIAL history. But he’s also a good bet to score 1,000 career points in basketball. Olsen, a 6-foot-5 forward, came into the week with 889 career points and was averaging 21.2 points this season.

Olsen will play football at Pennsylvania of the Ivy League.

• The WPIAL has a pair of potent one-two punches. Lincoln Park junior Brandin Cummings came into the week averaging 26.6 points and sophomore teammate Meleek Thomas 21.6. Meanwhile, Laurel Highlands senior Keondre DeShields is averaging 25.7 and senior teammate Rodney Gallagher 21.0.

Lincoln Park and Laurel Highlands are the only two WPIAL teams with two players averaging 20 or more.

Where are they now?

The No. 3 scorer in the country in NCAA Division II basketball is from the WPIAL.

Bryce Butler is a 6-foot-5 junior at West Liberty (W.Va.) and a graduate of Latrobe High. He entered the week with a 23.6 average and was averaging 7 rebounds per game. He has helped West Liberty to a 13-1 record and the No. 9 ranking in NCAA Division II. He has been named the Mountain East Conference Player of the Week four times.

Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1975 and Twitter @mwhiteburgh.

First Published: January 11, 2023, 3:14 p.m.

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Chartiers Valley's Jayden Davis is a 5-foot-10 sophomore and one of many guards in the Colts' lineup. Davis is averaging 24 points per game.  (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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