01/10/25 Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Bishop Guilfoyle's Jake Kissell puts up a shot over Tyrone's Sam Crilly.

By Michael Boytim

mboytim@altoonamirror.com

TYRONE — Bishop Guilfoyle Academy was supposed to be the team to beat in District 6 Class 3A boys basketball.

But the Marauders saw Danny “Jude” Haigh transfer to a school in Utah and star forward Trevor Rehm suffer a major injury before the season.

With those losses, focus began to shift toward teams like Forest Hills, Westmont Hilltop and Tyrone.

The remaining Bishop Guilfoyle players sent a message to the Golden Eagles Friday night, handing Tyrone its first loss, 63-51.

“We’re determined,” BG junior Tyson Lestochi said. “There’s all this talk from Tyrone and other teams that they are going to beat us by 20. They say they’ll beat us by a lot. We took that personal. We’re here to beat everyone in the district — everyone.”

The teams played an extremely competitive and exciting first quarter to a 19-19 tie and kept up the back-and-forth battle through most of the second quarter until the Marauders scored the final four points to take a 40-35 lead into the locker room.

Many of BG’s points came on the break, as they have all season.

“Every practice we work on transition,” BG sophomore Troy Ruggery said. “We’re trying to push it as fast as we can. We think we can get to another level. We’re a team that has done conditioning and can push the floor and get open buckets.”

A 10-1 Marauders run in the third quarter put BG ahead 53-40 before Sam Crilly ended the quarter with a layup.

That layup triggered a 9-0 Golden Eagles run that made it 53-49 with 4:35 to play.

That’s when Tyson Lestochi changed the game.

The junior guard found Chase Kissell on a perfect pass through a pair of defenders for a layup then stole the ball on Tyrone’s next possession and found Kissell again for another basket.

After Tyrone failed to score again, Lestochi called his own number and drove to the basket to make it 59-49 and all but end the game with three minutes to play.

“Tyson was great tonight,” Ryan Lestochi said. “We have been talking to him about his aggressiveness. We want him to be aggressive and make plays. He’s done that the last two games. He’s finding himself and getting back into shape after a long football season.”

Bishop Guilfoyle, which finished 6-of-7 from the foul line, sealed it there to close out the game. The Golden Eagles went just 7-for-14 from the foul line.

“They really move the ball well,” Tyrone coach Luke Rhoades said. “They are fast on offense. They fast on defense. They are just fast. They get after it. They move the ball and pressure really well. They played the way we like to play and turned the tide on us. They are a heck of a team.”

BG celebrated following the win that was accomplished without Rehm or Haigh.

“We took those losses as motivation,” Ruggery said. “Everyone believes that we’re less of a team without those guys, but we can be just as good.”

Ruggery led BG with 16 points, Taurean Consiglio added 12 points despite being in foul trouble and Nick Foor scored 11 points.

“They are very determined to show what kind of players they are,” Ryan Lestochi said. “Danny and Trevor got a lot of attention, rightfully so — they are great players — but we felt like we had a list of great players. Now they are getting a chance to show what they can do.”

Crilly led all scorers with 17 points.

“I thought we played hard tonight,” Crilly said. “We have to put this one behind us and keep our head up for the rest of the year. They sped us up a little bit. We didn’t get into our halfcourt offense. We’re usually more calm than that, but hopefully we improve from this and see them again.”

Tyrone got 10 points from Kendall Lehner, nine points from Trent Adams and eight from Andrew Escala, who was coming off a 29-point game against Huntingdon but was in foul trouble throughout the game.

“That definitely disrupted things,” Rhoades said. “You can’t commit stupid fouls. That disrupts things and puts people in different positions, but we have to rebuild from this and hopefully we’ll be able to battle back.”

Tyrone fell to 8-1, and Bishop Guilfoyle improved to 8-3.

“We knew it would be a raucous environment,” Ryan Lestochi said. “It’s a great rivalry. We just wanted to come out and match their energy from the start. We talked a lot this week about mental toughness. We just had to stay sharp mentally, and I thought we did that.”

BISHOP GUILFOYLE (63): Lestochi 4 1-2 9, Consiglio 5 0-0 12, Ruggery 6 3-3 16, Foor 5 0-0 11, J. Kissell 1 2-2 4, Gates 2 0-0 5, G. Okonak 0 0-0 0, C. Kissell 3 0-0 6. Totals — 26 6-7 63.

TYRONE (51): Crilly 6 2-4 17, Walk 0 0-2 0, Woomer 2 1-2 6, Lehner 5 0-0 10, Escala 3 1-2 8, Adams 3 2-2 9, Hamer 0 1-2 1, Oakes 0 0-0 0. Totals — 19 7-14 51.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Bishop Guilfoyle 19 21 13 10 — 63

Tyrone 19 16 7 9 — 51

3-point goals: Bishop Guilfoyle 5 (Consiglio 2, Ruggery, Food, Gates); Tyrone 5 (Crilly 3, Woomer, Escala).

Records: Bishop Guilfoyle (8-3); Tyrone (8-1).

Officials: Ray Wotkowski, Brandon Hoover.

JV: Bishop Guilfoyle, 69-37. High scorers–Carter Gwinn, T, 10; Connor Okonak, BG, 22.