Hempfield’s Austin Butler wins coaching debut against former team, Latrobe

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 | 11:15 PM

Previous Next

Austin Butler looked like he had just played a game, not coached one.

The first-year Hempfield coach breathed heavily and wiped sweat away, some of the moisture on his face and clothes coming from getting splashed with water when he went into the locker room.

His players sprayed him with water bottles after he won his debut against, of all teams, his high school alma mater and former coach.

“I’m soaked … I owe it to our guys to coach as hard as I want them to play,” Butler said Thursday night after the Spartans rallied past Latrobe for a 61-59 nonsection victory. “This game was won months ago when we started working together and preparing for this. We didn’t shoot the ball great, but our guys kept working and earned this. One-hundred percent team win.”

Butler coached with nonstop energy and wanted the Spartans to push the pace like Latrobe did when he played.

“I didn’t just do that because it was Latrobe,” he said. “You’ll see that from me every game, no matter who we play.”

Butler, the all-time leading scorer at Latrobe with 1,905 points and a former Division I player at Holy Cross and Charlotte who played professionally overseas, also went against the man he played for in Wildcats 24th-year coach Brad Wetzel.

“I will always root for my guys, Austin, Bryce (Butler), all of them,” Wetzel said. “I want to see them win, just not tonight.

“This was a great game. When else do you see a game this exciting this early in the season? I could see some shadows of old Latrobe in what they do.”

Butler and Wetzel see each other all the time. They are behavioral teachers at the same school, River Rock Academy in Latrobe.

Hempfield (1-0) overcame a 12-point deficit in the first half to get past the bigger Wildcats (2-1), who were up 52-47 before Hempfield made a decisive run in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.

After scoring six points in the first quarter, the Spartans put up 20 in the fourth.

Danny Husenits, who scored a game-high 25 points and made 11 of 12 free throws for the Spartans, connected on a straightaway 3-pointer before Lucas Simmons stole the ball and finished a three-point play to give the Spartans a 55-52 edge with 3 minutes, 15 seconds to go.

“I thought we defended at a high clip and rebounded better in the second half,” Austin Butler said. “I looked up, and there was about 1:04 left and we were up three. That is the kind of stuff we work on at the end of practice every day.”

Husenits drove in and scooped a layup off the glass to make it 57-52, but Andy Tatsch, who was seeing his first action of the season after recovering from a football injury, cut it to 57-54.

Simmons tipped in a miss, but Sawyer Butina hit a mid-range jumper for Latrobe with 16 seconds remaining to make it 59-56.

“We do practice the situational stuff a lot,” Husenits said. “That helped us tonight.”

After two free throws from Husenits, Dom Scarton connected on a 3 from the wing with 5.9 seconds for the final tally.

“We knew the first half would be tough,” Husenits said. “We had to work the jitters out. They got us on the glass at first, but we got some stops and were able to get out and run.”

Latrobe used its size advantage — 6-foot-7 Rob Young, 6-4 Ian DeCerb and 6-3 Tatsch — to control the boards early. Young had eight of his 11 in the first half.

But Hempfield’s guards ended up overshadowing Latrobe’s bigs.

Latrobe led 15-6 after the first quarter and 18-6 early in the second before settling on a 31-25 lead at the half.

Scarton and Mikey Monios made back-to-back 3s to give Latrobe a 31-22 advantage.

Husenits had nine points in the second quarter to keep the Spartans close.

In the third, Simmons hit a 3 before Butina scored on consecutive possessions. Husenits and Ian Spennati made 3s from the same spot on the right wing to get the Spartans within 41-40.

After a couple of ties in the fourth, and a near dunk by Tatsch, Williams put back a miss just before the Spartans went ahead for good.

“There were some times where we’d doing something phenomenal, then have some careless stuff,” Wetzel said.

Tatsch hit three 3-pointers and led the Wildcats with 13, Butina had 12 and Scarton nine.

Simmons and Luke Williams each scored 10.

Latrobe made seven 3s but shot 6 of 13 at the foul line. Hempfield was 16 for 20 at the line.

Trevor Donsen added 13 points for Hempfield, which will be back to action Friday night when it plays Penn-Trafford in the six-team Hempfield Tip-off Tournament.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Tags: Hempfield, Latrobe