Greensburg Central Catholic boys make it a regular-season sweep of Jeannette

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Tuesday, February 4, 2025 | 10:14 PM

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Jeannette boys basketball coach Adrian Batts said his Jayhawks could play Greensburg Central Catholic 10 times, and each team would win five.

It remains to be seen if the county rivals will play again in the postseason — the WPIAL draw and Class 2A bracket will determine that possibility — but, for now, one team has a two-game head start.

Top-ranked Greensburg Central Catholic constructed a Section 1-2A sweep of the No. 2 Jayhawks with a 58-48 victory on Tuesday night before a sellout crowd of over 600, clinching its sixth straight section title and likely securing the No. 1 seed in the upcoming WPIAL playoffs.

“I liked our poise tonight,” said GCC coach Christian Hyland. “They threw the first punch, but we came back and were ready to go, no panic.”

GCC (19-2, 13-0) stretched its home winning streak to 28 with its fourth straight win overall. It beat Jeannete, 53-47, earlier in the season.

GCC shared the ball and closed up the lane at times to keep the Jayhawks’ offense honest, while scoring with an aggressive approach.

“This is why our guys like playing together,” Hyland said. “We have a little bit of everything. We moved the ball better in the second half.”

AJ Tarpley had 17 points, Brady O’Rourke finished with 13 and Liam Gallagher added 11 for GCC.

Jeannette (17-2, 10-2), which had won six straight, dropped its first road game of the season (10-1).

“It’s tough when you have a game of this magnitude, and the teams are playing man-to-man defense, and there are at least five bad calls,” Batts said. “It was a great game, but let the kids decide it. You can’t made ticky-tack calls on one end and not the other.

“Kymon’e was called for a trip, and it was a four-point game. That call changed the game.”

Jayce Powell led Jeannette with 16 points, Kymon’e Brown had 14 and Markus McGowan chipped in 11.

This matchup was different than the first in the sense that both teams attacked the basket and forced the issue more on the offensive end.

They exchanged a number of drives, floaters and fast breaks in an almost parallel first half.

There were eight lead changes and six ties before the break.

GCC used a 12-0 run to build a 10-point lead in the third (36-26), with Gallagher scoring four straight.

The Centurions led the entire third quarter.

McGowan sparked Jeannette with a 3 and a pair of blocks to trim the margin, and Noah Sunder finished a layup on a feed from Powell to make it 36-33.

But GCC took a 42-35 lead to the fourth on the strength of a Tarpley layup — off Gallagher’s steal — and a lob pass from Crosby to Tarpley for two.

In the fourth, with Jeannette up 46-45 on a 3 from Brown, O’Rourke hit a jumper, and Samir Crosby drove the baseline for a layup to give GCC the lead back for good.

“That gave us some breathing room,” Hyland said.

Jeannette, which had three starters — Brown, McGowan and Xavier Odorisio-Farrow — playing with four fouls in the fourth, cut it to 49-48 on a layup by Powell with just over a minute to go.

But Gallagher connected on a 3 from the wing, and GCC made 6 of 8 free throws down the stretch to ice it. O’Rourke was 4 for 4.

GCC made 13 of 17 free throws for the game to Jeannette’s 4-for-7 effort.

“Liam is starting to see the ball go in the basket again, and he looks more comfortable in our offense,” Hyland said.

Batts said Jeannette needed to be more careful and decisive with the lead.

“We didn’t value possessions,” he said. “We took the lead and made mistakes instead of making them guard us.”

GCC took a 28-26 lead into halftime after Tarpley put back a missed 3 to beat the buzzer.

Batts thought the shot was late and asked local broadcasters if they had a replay to show a referee.

“GCC plays well at home, and they have a good team,” Batts said. “It’s tough to come here and win. There were a couple stretches where we had empty possessions and didn’t guard the lane.”

GCC led 16-14 after a back-and-forth first quarter.

GCC and Jeannette pre-sold 400 tickets for the game.

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., Jeannette