Butler's Devin Carney scores 49 in win vs. Pine-Richland

FROM LOCAL DISPATCHES

FEB 20, 2021

8:59 PM

Devin Carney is a teenager, but he’s been hanging with the 40-something crowd lately.

For the third time in five games, Carney surpassed 40 points and this time he almost hit 50. Carney, a junior guard at Butler High School, poured in 49 points Saturday to lead the Golden Tornado to a 74-71 overtime victory against visiting Pine-Richland in a WPIAL Class 6A Section 1 game.

Carney made 16 of 31 shots from the field as Butler (9-7 overall, 4-6 in section) knocked off one of the hottest teams in Class 6A. Pine-Richland (9-5, 6-3), the Post-Gazette’s No. 5 Class 6A team, had won seven of its past eight games and blew out No. 3 North Allegheny on Friday.

But Pine-Richland couldn’t hold down Carney, who is averaging 34.3 points over the past 10 games. In the past five games, Carney has scored 41, 28, 17, 41 and 49 points.

“He’s an incredible shot maker, and if you’re going to just play him one-on-one without any help, it’s not going to turn out good a lot of times,” Butler coach Matt Clement said.

For the season, Carney is the second-leading scorer in the WPIAL with a 31.7 average.

“The thing is, he’s doing this without shooting it every time down the court,” Clement said. “He took 31 shots (against Pine-Richland). I would say the most shots he took in a game before this was 24 or 25.”

Carney missed a shot at the end of regulation that would’ve won the game. Butler outscored Pine-Richland, 11-8, in overtime.

“In my opinion, a lot of teams are playing defense to not let our other guys shoot 3’s, because we have five guys who have made five 3-pointers in a game this year,” Clement said. “Pine-Richland beat us twice this year and they beat us with defense the first two games. They’ve done a really good job on Devin just playing hard, solid, man-to-man defense. He actually started off cold (Saturday), but finished on fire.

“I think the last five games have been his best games, but it’s not just because of his scoring. Take out the scoring and he’s been defending, rebounding, passing and he has given us just leadership in general. He’s starting to read the game so much better.”

Mattix Clement, son of the coach, added 14 points for Butler and scored the 1,000th of his career.