Chartiers Valley puts Best foot forward in PIAA Class 5A quarterfinal win over Johnstown

By: Mike Kovak
Friday, March 13, 2026 | 10:14 PM

On a night when the lights temporarily went out at Norwin High School, Julius Best provided much-needed energy for Chartiers Valley.

With the Colts off to a slow start during Friday night’s PIAA Class 5A quarterfinal against District 6 champion Greater Johnstown, Best came off the bench and sparked a run to get the Colts back into the game.

His play in the second half sure helped too, as Chartiers Valley advanced to the semifinals for a second consecutive year with a 42-36 victory.

“My job is to bring a spark off the bench and play with energy 100 percent of the time,” Best said. “Today is the day that my shots started to fall.”

Best scored a team-high 18 points, many coming at key moments for Chartiers Valley (26-2), the No. 2 team in the TribHSSN state rankings.

Chartiers Valley trailed 8-2 when Best entered the game midway through the first quarter. The Colts subsequently went on a 14-2 run.

In the second half, he came off the bench less than two minutes into the third quarter and scored six points to help turn a five-point deficit into a 31-30 lead going into the fourth quarter.

About the only thing that slowed Best was a stoppage with 38.5 seconds left in the second quarter when the main lights inside the gymnasium went out. The outage came about a minute after a Best 3-pointer gave the Colts a 21-19 lead.

“It definitely messes with the flow of the game,” Chartiers Valley coach Corey Dotchin said. “You can only control what you can control, and that’s what I tried to tell those guys.”

The main lights were out about two minutes, and the main scoreboard was out for much of the game. For players, it made knowing how much time remained difficult. It also kept Best from tracking his offensive output, though he admitted trying to sneak at least one peak at the scorebook.

Chalk it up to March basketball.

“You just never know what is going to happen this time of the year,” Greater Johnstown coach Ryan Durham said.

Lights going out might be a rare occurrence, but Chartiers Valley playing great defense this time of year is an annual tradition. It happened at this same stage last year when the Colts defeated the Trojans by 20, also at Norwin.

And it happened again despite Greater Johnstown junior Aubrey Robinson making six 3-pointers and scoring a game-high 20 points. The Colts kept him off the scoreboard during the pivotal fourth quarter.

“We had to start paying more attention to his shooting,” Dotchin said. “We had to guard (Robinson) tighter and start closing out on him. We’ve been a good defensive team all year long.”

After a Raheem Braswell basket for Greater Johnstown tied the score at 34-34, the Colts began to pull away.

Sophomore Luca Federico put the Colts ahead on a post play before Best — the team’s “sixth starter” according to Dotchin — grabbed a defensive rebound and took it the length of the court to go up 38-34. Federico (13 points) scored the game’s final four points.

“We really dug deep,” Best said. “We knew we had to push super hard so we could keep playing.”

Tags: Chartiers Valley