Jan 27, 2018 3 min read

BELLE VERNON – Trailing 9-0 to Uniontown in its Section 3-AAAA first-place showdown, the Belle Vernon High School boys basketball team did not panic.

Head coach Kyle DeGregorio didn’t even call a timeout.

With a veteran team, DeGregorio expected the Leopards to get going, and they did, as Belle Vernon went on an 11-0 run to take a lead and then cruised to a 68-53 win to take sole possession of first place.

“I have enough confidence in my team. I knew we were down 9-0 and they knew we were down 9-0, so what was I going to tell them?” DeGregorio asked.

“From when we were down 9-0 until there were two minutes left in the second quarter, I thought it was some of our best basketball we have played. But if we are going to beat the better teams, we can’t fall behind like that.”

The difference in the game was Belle Vernon’s inside presence in 6-5 senior center Joe Sabolek and 6-3 senior forward Derek Thomas.

The duo dominated the much-smaller Red Raiders (7-3, 11-6) whose tallest player inside was 5-10 Melo Grooms.

Thomas finished with a season-high 17 points and 14 rebounds, and Sabolek had 16 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots.

“I felt where Joe got involved was when he went to the weak side as guys drove and was able to get some offensive rebounds and put them in,” DeGregorio said. “Defensively, he controlled the middle.”

DeGregorio also spoke about Thomas, who would start for every other team in the section but is a super sub for the Leopards in DeGregorio’s four-guard offense.

“Derek is a tough kid who plays really, really hard,” he said. “I his skill has gotten better and it allows him to get to the basket more than he has in the previous years. We think that his best days are in front of him and we will be a better team for it.”

Trailing 9-0, the Leopards (8-2, 13-4) countered with a 13-0 run that was ignited by a Cam Nusser putback off of an offensive rebound.

Trenton Uphold ended the run with a basket for Uniontown to close the first-quarter scoring and the Leopards carried a 13-11 lead into the second quarter.

Sabolek and Uniontown’s Cedric Greer exchanged baskets to start the second quarter, then the Leopards went on a 13-2 run to open a 28-15 lead.

Belle Vernon’s second-quarter lead grew to 20 points, at 38-18, before Giovani Marian made a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer to make the score 38-21.

The third quarter was evenly played but Uniontown outscored Belle Vernon 18-13 to trim its deficit to 51-39 heading into the fourth quarter.

Belle Vernon’s lead never got smaller than eight points in the fourth quarter.

Jared Hartman scored 10 points for Belle Vernon and Griffin LaCarte had five assists.

Belle Vernon, which has won three straight against Uniontown for the first time in school history and is 10-47 all-time against the Red Raiders, is at Keystone Oaks Tuesday for a key section game.

“We have four games left and have to take them one at a time,” DeGregorio said. “If we don’t add any in the loss column, then we are going to win the section regardless of what anybody else does.

“We have absolute control of what we are doing and don’t what the guys thinking any other way.”