McKeesport, PA. – With basketball season coming to an end on Tuesday night as both the men’s and women’s basketball teams dropped their quarterfinal matchups, The PSUGA Athletics Department announced it’s final winter athletes of the week. PSUGA Women’s Basketball player Teaira Hartley (East Stroudsburg, PA./East Stroudsburg North HS) was named the PSUGA Female athlete of the week while Jordon Payne (McKeesport, PA./McKeesport HS) grabbed PSUGA Male Athlete of the Week honors.
Both Payne and Hartley have been the veteran leaders on their respective teams and have been big reasons why they both made trips to the playoffs. Each player was among the conference leaders on the offensive side of the ball, and their presence on defense held opponents in check throughout the season.
Hartley combined to score 24 points over her final two games of the season including a team high 14 points in the final regular season match-up with PSU-Fayette on February 15th. Hartley followed up that effort with 10 points in the PSUGA Women’s Penn State University Athletic Conference Quarterfinal match-up with Fayette on Tuesday. She could have had a lot more, but foul trouble hurt her as she fouled out with just over six minutes left in the game.
After spending her first two seasons at Lackawanna College, Hartley had a breakout year with PSUGA. She finished second on the team with 305 points in 26 games played for an average of 11.7 points per game. While she was a big scorer for PSUGA, she was even better at getting her teammates the ball and giving them opportunities to score. She finished the year leading the conference with 129 assists, 19 more then the next closes player.
On the men’s side, Payne was just as impressive to close out his senior season leading his team offensively in the final two games. He combined to score 46 points over his final two games of the season including an 18 point effort in Tuesday’s PSUAC Quarterfinal match-up with PSU-Shenango, including 13 as part of PSUGA’s 32-point second half.
Payne has been a leader all for PSUGA in each of his four seasons playing an instrumental part in making it to the playoffs every year. His Senior season was no exception as he finished fourth in the conference with 452 points in 25 games played for an average of 18.8 points per game. He finished second on the all-time scoring list at PSUGA with 1760 points, just 86 behind the all-time leading scorer Anthony Rivers who scored 1,846 points in his career.
With basketball season coming to a close, it is time to look ahead to the spring season as PSUGA Baseball kicks off on Saturday when they take on Westmoreland County CC in double header action. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. followed by the second game at 4 p.m.
