Belle Vernon boys ride ‘all kinds of heart’ to win over Derry

By: Liam Belan
Friday, December 19, 2025 | 10:59 PM

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Every athlete knows to stay prepared at all times because there’s no telling when one can get a chance to make a big impact.

On Friday night, Belle Vernon’s Vincenzo Francia earned a spot in the starting lineup with senior leader Curty Wade suddenly out, and he made the most of it in an 81-61 win over Derry.

Francia, a junior, scored nine points, hustled hard and helped limit Derry’s Stanley Rajkovich to just 10 points.

“When you have a great player like (Rajkovich) coming in, how do you counter that? Well, you get a kid with all kinds of heart like Vincenzo that wanted that challenge,” Belle Vernon coach Ricky Tyburski said. “When he was afforded that challenge, he wanted it and he did what he had to do to limit a great basketball player tonight.

“He did everything that we asked of him. His role was to guard Stanley as best as he could, and it was a big role to take on. But we felt confident in his ability to do it, and he went out there and did it.”

Francia had to be ready when he was thrust into the lineup for Wade, who took the Belle Vernon coaching staff by surprise Friday morning when they learned that he “was asked about an opportunity to move on,” per Tyburski. He couldn’t say for certain that Wade wouldn’t return to the team given they didn’t have the full details as of Friday night.

The Leopards (6-3, 3-0) looked like a team that was a bit flustered from the sudden change, trailing 25-17 after one quarter, but they dominated from there. Belle Vernon outscored Derry (4-4, 1-2), 64-36, the rest of the way as their defensive pressure started to suffocate the Trojans.

“We started off slow, but it’s understandable,” Tyburski said. “But we turned it on in the second quarter. They did everything that we worked on in practice leading up to this game: brought on the defense, finished our easy shots, forced lots of turnovers. Once we scored here and there and applied the pressure, it changed the game in our favor.”

Luca Ghilani paced Belle Vernon with 20 points, 18 in the first half. Cam Jenko picked up where Ghilani left off in the second half as 12 of his 18 points came in the final two quarters. Joining them in double-digits was Elijah Majors (17) and Dane Daugherty (10).

“We’ve been keying on that since the preseason, that we were hoping to have five kids in double-figures a game,” Tyburski said. “We have the ability to do that. When you’re able to spread the ball out like that, obviously the opponent can’t focus on just one player. So that’s big for us.”

Brayden Robinson did the majority of the scoring for the Trojans as he scored a game-high 21 points.

Derry came out of the gates firing as Robinson quickly scored the first seven points of the game on two layups and a triple. Once Logan Irvin connected from deep, the Leopards took their first timeout of the contest trailing 10-0.

Belle Vernon then found its bearings as Ghilani nailed a 3 and Jenko added two more to cut the deficit in half. Rajkovich threw down a monstrous dunk after the Trojans broke the BV press, but the Leopards then rattled off six points in a row to make the score 12-11 in favor of Derry.

From there, the Trojans dominated the rest of the quarter and added some cushion back to their lead. They outscored Belle Vernon, 13-6, over the next few minutes.

After the Leopards looked to claw back but Derry responded, the victors ripped off a 9-0 lead to take their first lead of the game with two minutes left in the half. Ghilani hit a 3, one of four he connected on, Francia made a layup, Daugherty hit a jumper and Ghilani added two more to put BVA ahead for the first time at 33-31.

From there, the home squad never surrendered that advantage. Rajkovich tied it 33-33, but Majors hit a triple and then the Leopards fully took momentum and fired up the crowd when their press generated three straight steals and easy layups on the other end. That made the score 42-33 in favor of Belle Vernon and forced a Derry timeout.

With the halftime score at 44-37, Francia came right out of the break and provided energy with an and-1. But Liam McMahen and Robinson canned 3-pointers to cut the Derry deficit to 49-43 after that.

Belle Vernon then replied with 3s from Daugherty and Majors as it simply wouldn’t give up any ground. McMahen added the first two points of the fourth quarter to make it 60-51 in favor of the Leopards, but Jenko and AJ Watson teamed up for a 10-0 run that put the game out of reach.

Tyburski commended the performances of Watson and Cam Black, sophomores who rotated in and combined for seven points while defending hard.

Rajkovich added five of his points down the stretch when the game was mostly out of hand, showcasing just how well Francia and the Leopards bottled him up defensively on the night.

Belle Vernon will return to play against Greensburg Central Catholic on Saturday at Jeannette.

Tags: Belle Vernon, Derry Area