Jeannette rises to occasion, routs Derry at Seton Hill

By: Dave Mackall
Sunday, January 26, 2025 | 10:17 PM

The high school boys basketball playoffs might have started a bit early this season for Jeannette.

Not really.

But the Jayhawks certainly were in a playoff state of mind Sunday at Seton Hill.

Xavier Odorisio-Farrow scored 21 points to top four players in double figures, and Jeannette defeated Derry, 74-51, at the Shootout at Seton Hill tournament.

“I told our guys, ‘This is like a playoff matchup for us,’ ” Jeannette coach Adrian Batts said. “Our mindset was like a playoff matchup. The kids were focused. I thought we played really well. On to the next one, continue to get better.”

Class 2A No. 2 Jeannette (14-1) jumped on Class 4A Derry early, answering a basket by the Trojans’ Stanley Rajkovich to open the game with a 20-0 run before Rajkovich’s two free throws in the final seconds of the first quarter made it a 20-4 Jeannette lead.

“We got off to a really good start. Our pressure was really good,” Batts said.

Jeannette held a 34-18 halftime advantage.

“Very slow start. We never got off the bus,” Derry coach Tom Esposito said. “Just very flat. We were going through the motions, and that’s not us. That is not our basketball team.”

Derry (10-7), with victories over Class 4A No. 2 Belle Vernon in overtime and Class 6A Connellsville to its credit, wasted a valuable opportunity against Jeannette to add to its credentials, Esposito said.

“We’ve got four (regular-season) games left, and we’re trying to build the best resume we can for a playoff seeding,” he said. “We shouldn’t even mention the word, playoffs, with the effort we got tonight.”

The first quarter became such a debacle for Derry that Esposito pulled his starters midway through the period.

He said he’d never done anything as drastic.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, “I figured it would serve as a wake-up call. We just gave up way too many easy baskets, and that’s not us. We’re a good defensive basketball team.”

Kymon’e Brown added 18 points, Markus McGowan finished with 16 and Stone Markham chipped in 10 for Jeannette, which plays three more games in four days this week after having a pair of contests postponed last week because of the icy-cold temperatures.

“I was worried about how we’d play today,” Batts said. “We never really play well up here. But this is a really good win for us. Derry plays really hard, and they’re well-coached. It was a really good game for us.”

After leading 30-8 in the second quarter, Jeannette settled for its 18-points halftime advantage.

The Jayhawks still were ahead by 18 in the third quarter before Derry made a run, closing within 46-36 on two free throws by Rajkovich with time dwindling in the period.

Jeannette was leading 47-36 heading to the fourth and pulled away with a 27-15 advantage in the final 8 minutes.

“They tried to come back. They got it to 10,” Batts said. “Playing with a big lead sometimes is hard, because you do have a tendency to let up. But give Derry the credit for that. (Rajkovich) is pretty good. We fouled him, and he made his free throws. He’s got a great future.”

Rajkovich, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, led Derry with 23 points — 19 in the second half — and John Wasnick added 12.

Rajkovich’s first-half points all came in the first quarter.

“Stanley needs to touch the basketball,” Esposito said. “Whether he shoots or not, whether he has a scoring opportunity or not, he needs to touch the basketball every single trip down the floor to help everybody else out. We didn’t get him the ball until the second quarter.

“In the second half, I thought we picked it up a little bit. But we just dug ourselves too much of a hole. We started off flat. Jeannette’s good. They did what we expected them to do.”

At times afterwards, Esposito appeared speechless.

“I’m just dumbfounded,” he said. “As a young kid, you would think any time you put the uniform on, you’d want to play hard. They should enjoy it. They should embrace the opportunity to play at a college like this. Instead, we came out flat.”

Tags: Derry Area, Jeannette