Westmoreland County girls basketball notebook: Former Latrobe standout makes return

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 | 5:01 PM

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Latrobe welcomed Jenny from the block back to town.

The girls program saw its all-time basketball scoring leader return for a holiday tournament at “The Den.”

Jen Sobota coaches the McLean girls team from Virginia.

McLean played Peters Township on Wednesday in the six-team tournament and will face host Latrobe at 8 p.m. Thursday.

A 1999 graduate, Sobota scored 2,093 points for latrobe. She also had more than 700 assists and 400 steals before playing at William & Mary.

Life without Liv

The Southmoreland girls are missing point guard Olivia Cernuto. Yes, one player can have that big of an impact.

Cernuto tore her ACL during soccer season and has to miss basketball season. She is a Gannon basketball commit.

Consider: The Scotties are 1-7 averaging just 27.9 points per game. They only lost 12 games combined the last three years and had 50 wins and three straight WPIAL semifinal appearances.

The Scotties also had a 44-game home winning streak end Dec. 13 against Albert Gallatin.

Getting closer?

Jeannette has lost 49 in a row, but the Lady Jays appear to be inching closer to their first win of the season.

Their 52-47 loss to Hundred, W.Va., on Tuesday was their sixth loss by 10 or fewer points, and third defeat decided by five or less.

Rank and file

Norwin began the week ranked No. 1 in the TribLive HSSN Class 6A rankings for the second week in a row. The Lady Knights suffered their first loss Tuesday, 47-37, at McKeesport.

Other local teams in the rankings include No. 3 Penn-Trafford in 5A, No. 4 Greensburg Salem in 4A, and Greensburg Central Catholic in 2A.

More section play

Section play will begin for several teams just as a new calendar goes up on the wall.

Norwin will host North Allegheny and Hempfield will head to Pine-Richland for the start of Section 1-6A play Monday night.

Also, Burrell visits Mt. Pleasant in Section 3-3A, and Yough hosts Brownsville in Section 4-3A.

On Thursday, notable local section games include Seneca Valley at Hempfield, Kiski Area at Franklin Regional (1-5A), North Catholic at Greensburg Salem (1-4A) and Serra Catholic at Greensburg Central Catholic (3-2A).

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Tags: Greensburg C.C., Greensburg Salem, Jeannette, Latrobe, Norwin, Southmoreland