TJ suffers first section loss at hands of Chartiers Valley

By Joe Sabolek

MVI Sports

The Thomas Jefferson boys basketball team came up short Friday night, suffering a 56-51 loss to Chartiers Valley in Section 2-5A play. 

The first section defeat of the year for the Jaguars (3-4, 2-1) was one that left much to be desired, but TJ head coach Dominic DeCicco was pleased with how his team responded to a solid Char Valley squad, despite the fact that many of his starters have been absent due to the Jaguars football team securing the Class 4A state championship a few weeks ago.

“I don’t think people realize that we’ve had four practices, maybe five as a team. They have gotten so much better from then until now, and I think our ceiling is really high,” DeCicco said. “To be honest, at this time last year, we were 0-3 after section play and we still made the playoffs. If we can make those same improvements, we’ll be OK.”

The Jags’ offense couldn’t get anything going out of the gates, but luckily for them, neither could Char Valley (4-2, 3-1). 

The teams traded buckets throughout the first quarter before Ian Hansen scored on two straight possessions, one off a slick feed from Dan Deabner to make it an 11-10 deficit for TJ with just under a minute left in the first. 

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