Building and winning: Roster has changed but young Bucs stay on top
Mark Marietta
New look, same results.
That’s a good thing for the Chartiers-Houston boys basketball team.
After losing four of five starters to graduation it may have been considered by some to be a building year for the Bucs.
In a sense that’s exactly what it is, but nowhere does it say that a team can’t build and win at the same time.
This group is certainly proving that.
Through the first half, the defending section champion Bucs are 7-0 in Class 2A Section 3 play (12-3 overall) and picked up a signature victory on the road Tuesday against previously unbeaten Jefferson-Morgan, 50-45
Chartiers-Houston has only one senior, Aaron Walsh, the lone returning starter, and two juniors. The rest are sophomores and freshmen.
Bucs coach Rich Tranquill credited the feeder system providing players that can make an impact right away.
“Honestly, these are program wins,” Tranquill said after Tuesday’s win against the Rockets. “This is coming up from the staff from our youth to our junior high to the staff we have here on the varsity team. These guys are coming up ready to play.”
Those guys coming up include freshman Bryson Boskovich and sophomore Wes Yeater. Both made a major impact in the win over Jefferson-Morgan.
Yeater had 13 points and was six of seven from the foul line. As a team the Bucs made 15 of their 17 free-throw attempts.
Boskovich had two crucial three-pointers in the fourth quarter that tied the game at 40-40 and set the stage for Brody McCrerey’s go-ahead three late.
McCrerey, a junior, is another key player stepping into a much bigger role. He had 13 points against Jefferson-Morgan.
“The game is not too big for them,” Tranquill said. “They’re focused on what we want to do and buying in to what we want to do. They’re just coming and playing. We just ask them to work hard and the rest will take care of itself.”
Having Walsh back has helped immensely. He started alongside the dynamic backcourt of Justus Buckingham and Nate Gregory on a team that won a playoff game for the first time since 2018.
Walsh is the quarterback on the football team and in a sense serves a similar role for the basketball team. He’s the floor general and Tranquill said he’s been invaluable to the team.
“He’s a leader in every sense of the word,” Tranquill said. “He does a lot of little things and quiet things that most people probably wouldn’t pick up on. He’s the glue that holds everything together, especially with a young team. When mistakes are made he’s right there with them. It’s something you can’t really teach or coach. He just has it and his leadership goes far beyond what we could ever ask for.”
Others that saw playing time Tuesday were sophomores Dominic Andreolli and Tommy Dzura, junior Noah Doyle and freshman Ethan Farnham, who’s 6-foot-5.
The Bucs will get tested tonight when they travel to play Fort Cherry. Chartiers-Houston beat the Rangers, 50-47, at home in the first meeting. It was one of the closer games Chartiers-Houston has played this season along with the five-point win against Jefferson-Morgan and a two-point nonsection win at Avella that ended with a game-winning basket by McCrerey.
The Bucs have passed every section test they’ve had to this point and even with their inexperience, seem to have the right demeanor to try and make it two section championships in a row.
“The biggest thing is they don’t make any excuses,” Tranquill said. “We can’t change our age or who we have back and they’re not trying to. They’re just going out and being themselves. That’s kind of what we focus on. Is just being us.”