Whitlock leads Farmers back to championship game

By JEREMY SELLEW

jsellew@yourmvi.com

All summer long, Devin Whitlock has been the spark to his Farmers Insurance team in the Mon Valley Independent Summer Basketball League.

He’s not always the leading scorer or the leading rebounder, but he distributes the ball and always gets his teammates involved.

During Tuesday’s semifinal, he was his team’s leader in pretty much every statistical category.

The Belle Vernon Area junior scored a game-high 24 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and at one point, scored 11 straight points in the second half to lead top-seed Farmers into the league’s championship game with a 59-49 win over No. 4 Campy’s Pizza.

Whitlock scored 18 points in the second half.

“It’s always a struggle for us when we play them,” Farmers head coach Dana Zajicek said. “It was like that in our first two games this season. In that second half run, the 3-pointer isn’t the best shot for Dev, but he was wide open and hit two big ones. Those are good shots.”

After a three-point play by Campy’s Eli Teslovich tied the game at 36, Farmers got to big baskets from Laurel Highlands’ Caleb Palumbo off of great assists from Whitlock in transition to make it a four-point game.

Then Whitlock went on his own streak. Every bucket Campy’s scored, Whitlock answered himself.

After Ringgold’s Demetrius Butler scored on a layup to make it 42-39, Whitlock scored on a drive to the basket and hit a trey on his team’s next possession to make it 47-39 with 6:50 remaining.

Minutes later, Whitlock answered a jumper by Charleroi’s Will Wagner with another 3-pointer to push the lead back to eight with 4:45 remaining.

“I was feeling really confident in everything I was doing,” Whitlock said. “This is just like a high school game and we have a lot of chemistry like we’ve played together all high school season. We have really good chemistry.”

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