Upper St. Clair tops Chartiers Valley in battle of No. 1 overall seeds
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Friday, February 26, 2021 | 10:36 PM
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Banbury (25) celebrates next to Chartiers Valley’s Brayden Reynolds during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Gensler drives to the basket past Chartiers Valley’s Brayden Reynolds during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Banbury past Chartiers Valley’s Anthony Collura during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Porter Rauch pulls down a rebound against Chartiers Valley on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Gensler scores past Chartiers Valley’s Anthony Mackey during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Chartiers Valley’s Brayden Reynolds dunks against Upper St. Clair on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Ethan Dahlem scores past Chartiers Valley’s Frank Dervanik during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s David Pantelis works against Chartiers Valley’s Carter Mastovich during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s David Pantelis pressures Chartiers Valley’s Brayden Reynolds during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s David Pantelis drives to the basket against Chartiers Valley on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Gensler scores past Chartiers Valley’s Brayden Reynolds during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
Upper St. Clair’s Luke Gensler celebrates a three-pointer next to Chartiers Valley’s Anthony Collura during their game on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at Chartiers Valley High School.
This would’ve been a scrimmage most years, tucked between the WPIAL pairings meeting and the playoff openers, but Upper St. Clair and Chartiers Valley played Friday night with purpose.
Rarely do two No. 1 seeds share a court.
“It definitely felt like a playoff environment,” said USC’s Luke Gensler, who scored a game-high 24 points and led a strong third-quarter push to defeat host Chartiers Valley, 65-56, in the teams’ regular-season finale.
The WPIAL awarded each team a No. 1 overall playoff seed earlier this week. Upper St. Clair (16-1) will enter the upcoming playoffs No. 1 in Class 6A and Chartiers Valley (19-3) will be No. 1 in 5A.
There’s no better way to end the regular season, said USC coach Danny Holzer.
“Tonight was an intense, all-out fight for 32 minutes,” Holzer said. “It was much, much more productive than a scrimmage. No question.”
Neither team had a lead larger than five until the second half, when Upper St. Clair outscored Chartiers Valley, 17-4, in the third quarter.
USC’s outside shots weren’t falling in the first half but the Panthers turned their attention inside and finished with three scorers in double figures. Joining Gensler were Luke Banbury with 14 points and David Pantelis with 11.
Chartiers Valley had led 34-29 at half, but Gensler scored 11 points in the third, including consecutive layups to lead 35-34. CV’s Socrates Boulis scored a minute later to retake the lead, but Pantelis answered with another layup to give USC the lead for good.
The Panthers led 46-38 after three.
Brayden Reynolds scored 20 points for Chartiers Valley but only six after halftime.
“Offensively, we got stagnant and took bad shots,” CV coach Brandon Sensor said. “When you take bad shots, it really hurts your defense. Sometimes you’ve just got to want it. At times we’re not all five guys zoned in.”
Chartiers Valley opens the playoffs Wednesday hosting either No. 16 Hampton or No. 17 McKeesport. Upper St. Clair starts Tuesday against No. 16 Greensburg Salem or No. 17 Canon-McMillan.
The WPIAL broke from tradition and allowed teams to schedule regular-season games up until their playoff openers. So, about a week or two ago, USC and CV made plans.
“They’re one of the best teams we could face,” Sensor said. “You want that. It prepares you and gets you ready. Win or lose, we learned from it. We lost. We don’t want to have that feeling again.”
Reynolds helped Chartiers Valley build an early lead with a dunk and two 3-pointers among his 14 first-half points. The senior went 6 for 9 shooting from the floor before half.
A buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Carter Mastovich sent CV to halftime with their largest lead of the game. The Colts made five 3s in the second quarter.
However, CV made only 1 of 10 shots from the field in the third quarter and Reynolds was held to a pair of free throws.
Holzer had challenged his USC players at halftime to play better defense and make more shots. The Panthers went 12 for 34 shooting in the first half, including a dismal 1 for 11 from 3-point range.
“I gave them a good tongue-lashing at halftime,” Holzer said. “A positive one, not a bad one, if you know what I mean. But I challenged some guys. I knew they would respond.”
USC scored the first six points to start the second half and accounted for 10 of the first 12. The Panthers made eight of their 15 shots in the third on mostly layups, led by Gensler, who went 5 for 7.
“There are moments when he can tell we aren’t us,” Gensler said. “He needs to speak up and tell us we need to get into the game. I think it helps big time.”
Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.
Tags: Chartiers Valley, Upper St. Clair
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