Behind big night from James ‘Booboo’ Armstrong, Hopewell zips past Greensburg Salem

By: Antonio Rossetti
Friday, February 13, 2026 | 9:41 PM

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Hopewell used a 22-point third quarter to get past Greensburg Salem for a 74-49 victory Friday in the first round of the WPIAL Class 4A boys basketball playoffs.

James “Booboo” Armstrong delivered 20 points, 16 rebounds and five assists for the Vikings.

Armstrong sparked the offense, getting the Vikings into transition after cleaning up the glass.

“I feel like that’s really the biggest point of my game,” Armstrong said. “I just try to do everything around the court, not just score points. I try to pass, get my teammates involved and get rebounds.”

Said Hopewell teammate Brody Rock: “Booboo’s great inside. I can find him wherever. We play football together, so we’ve got great communication — great chemistry.”

Hopewell’s game plan was to use size to its advantage against a Golden Lions team that lacked a player over 6 feet tall.

“We started to be a little lackluster during the second half, but we really picked it up in the third quarter,” Armstrong said. “We started to get downhill, started scoring more points, and it just led to the game opening up.”

Rock added a team-leading 23 points and six boards, and Justin Shegog tallied 15 points.

“They chip in a lot,” Armstrong said. “They’re the other scorers on the team. People like to say we’re the ‘Big Three’ — that’s what I like to call us, too, but we’ve got a lot of other guys like Jack Biega and Tre Cameron who contribute by playing defense. I feel like that’s the biggest part — everybody on the team contributes something. When we all go together and all contribute our part, we get wins like that.”

Armstrong commended their ball pressure and tight defense that turned into offense. Hopewell outrebounded Greensburg Salem, 34-19.

Jeremy Benninghoff posted nine points and six rebounds for Hopewell.

The Vikings opened the game on a 12-2 run with Shegog notching a pair of layups on the first run and didn’t drop the lead.

Nonetheless, the Golden Lions kept it close for the first two quarters. Layups from Brody Burkholder and Ty Harkcom cut it to 12-9 going into the second quarter.

The Golden Lions trimmed the lead to 20-19, but Armstrong sparked a 7-1 run to end the half leading 27-20.

The Vikings exploded for 47 points in the second half. Their massive run continued into with Rock capping a 19-4 run to take a 39-23 lead.

Hopewell outscored Greensburg Salem, 22-11, in the third quarter for a 49-31 lead. Hopewell’s fast pace led to a 25-point fourth quarter for the victory.

“I give Hopewell credit,” Greensburg Salem coach Paul Sapotichne said. “I thought they did a good job. I saw a lot of their games on film. They were a little bigger than they looked on film to me, but they played hard and I give their coach credit. Good luck to them.”

The Vikings turned up the tempo and pressured the ball to disrupt the Golden Lions.

“We don’t have a lot of offensive firepower,” Sapotichne said. “We like to score in the 40s or 50s. If it gets higher than that, we have difficulty scoring that many points.”

Hopewell getting into rhythm and pushing the ball led to victory.

“We’re a lot bigger than them, so we should’ve been doing that from the start, but in the second half, we really tried to focus on driving more and being bigger than them,” Rock said. “When we do that, it opens up the shots outside. That gave us more room to operate.”

Sapotichne said injured Jackson Stevey would have helped in a game like this.

“They were physical — and I’m not saying they fouled every time or anything like that, but they’re bigger and stronger,” Sapotichne said. “We’re frail and little right now. Their defense bothered us a little bit. We had a number of turnovers we shouldn’t have had.”

Losing Stevey led to a thinner roster.

“We only had 10 to begin with, and we’re small,” Sapotichne said. “He was the only player I had over 6-foot. Losing him, the guys had to adjust. We lost a couple without him, but we won our last two games. We’re ahead of schedule. We’re going to be better next year and the year after. We have a lot of good young players coming.

“The seniors, I thought, did an outstanding job this year. There were a lot of games where they played the entire 32 minutes — mostly 32 minutes. I thought they did a very good job. They tried, and they gave me great effort.”

Sapotichne is grateful for his senior class.

“It’s been very enjoyable,” he said. “I just told them that. Our numbers are terrible as far as the amount of people we have. Half the practices this year, we had six, seven or eight guys because we had injuries and different things like that.”

Nevertheless, the Golden Lions battled through and made it as the 12th seed.

“This win means a lot to me,” Armstrong said. “I’m trying to look past it now because we’ve got another game, but it was definitely surreal. It was a great feeling — especially because my brother played here for a year, and they weren’t very good. Just watching this school not be very good, and me loving this school with my whole heart, it really meant a lot for everybody to come out and for us to get this done.”

Tags: Greensburg Salem, Hopewell