Jan 15, 2018 5 min read

Nobody questioned whose hands the basketball was going to be in during the final minutes of games for the Charters-Houston and Washington boys basketball teams last year.

It really hasn’t even been a question pondered by head coaches Eugene Briggs and Ron Faust for the past four years.

With star guards AJ Myers and Matt Popeck – both the leading scorers in their respective school’s history – everybody in the building knew who the longtime coaches were going to put their faith in.

“Matt was a given even though people paid great attention to him,” Faust said. “He was our go-to guy. He was a hard worker, a great kid and such a competitor.”

“Everything was geared through a talent like that,” Briggs said of the Chartiers-Houston offense revolving around Myers.

This season, without the two players who changed their respective programs – Myers scored 1,638 career points and Popeck led Washington’s storied basketball history with 1,488 – the Bucs and Prexies have been forced to make changes.

Those changes haven’t halted the success of either Wash High or Chartiers-Houston as the two have a combined 15-5 record. A win by Washington (4-0, 7-3) over section rival Burgettstown last week has the Prexies in control of Section 4-AAA, while Chartiers-Houston (3-0, 8-2) is second place in Section 2-AA behind Fort Cherry. The Rangers have played two more section games than C-H.

Fort Cherry hosts the Bucs at 7:30 p.m. tonight.

Without Myers, C-H has not missed a beat on offense as the Bucs average 61.9 points per game.

“It has made us a more balanced team, and maybe a better all-around team,” Briggs said. “There is a little more focus paid on the defense end because there has to be. We’re not better because AJ is gone, but because everybody else is forced to step up. We have a tremendous player in Cam Hanley. Andrew Clark is averaging 16 points per game. Zach Southern has around 12 points per game.”

Hanley eclipsed the 1,000-point mark earlier in the season and is also expected to be the all-time leading rebounder at C-H.

“Cam has always done the same thing,” Briggs said. “He plays hard and attacks the basket. He has been that way for three years. He doesn’t have to fire up threes or have plays run for him. He just works hard and goes and gets the ball.”

The biggest alteration for C-H is the inclusion of Zach Ford, a 6-7 center, who shed 50 pounds over the summer to have an increased role.

“Though you don’t see it in the box score, when you have an inside threat it opens up outside shots and drives to the basket,” Briggs said. “(Zach) is able to run the floor very well and this is his first year of really being an impact player.”

Playing without Popeck wasn’t completely unfamiliar for a young Washington team.

“We got a little bit of a taste last year when Matt was injured,” Faust said of Popeck’s ankle injury that sidelined him for a few playoff games last season.

“All of the sudden, we didn’t have him and had to change. There are two things you have to consider as a coach: personnel and style of play. It was a precursor of what we were going to have to do this year.”

What has been constant for the Prexies is their effort on the defensive end. After finishing third in Class 3-A last season in points allowed per game (48.4), Wash High leads the classification through its 10 games this season at 48.1.

“Defense is our way of staying in the game,” Faust said. “We don’t have a Matt Popeck right now. Our players are getting more and more experience, and that’s not saying we don’t have a Matt Popeck in the making. We don’t know where our points are going to come from on a given night. We are getting more efficient offensively than we were earlier in the year. There were times when we went to the offensive end of the floor and didn’t even get a shot off. They’re getting more comfortable at playing with one another.”

The success of the two teams is not a surprise to either coach. It was just a matter of changing how those wins could pile up.

“There has been a no attempt to slow the game down,” Briggs explained as C-H has won 17 straight section games. “What happens is we do a better job in half-court defense, which makes the possessions longer for the opponent. I thought we would be the best defensive team (in the section).”

Washington hasn’t lost a section game since Feb. 1, 2016. The Prexies have won 19 straight.

“I really had no idea because you don’t know what kind of changes you are going to make and whether people will start to blend together,” Faust said about the Prexies’ start. “There is a tradition at our school where every team tries to establish their own tradition. Am I surprised? No. I thought we would at least be competitive. I just didn’t know how long it was going to take.”