BUTLER TWP — Call it the perfect storm.

Butler senior guard Devin Carney scored the 2,000th point of his high school career recently. He joined Ethan Morton in what is believed to be the only two players to reach 2,000 points while being high school teammates for at least two seasons in Pennsylvania high school boys basketball history.

“For something like this to happen, everything has to work out,” Butler coach Matt Clement said. “One, to score 2,000 points,. you have to be an incredibly skilled athlete. Two, you have to have good teammates, you can’t be the only guy who can score. Three, you have to stay healthy all the way through.

“Ethan and Devin had all of those things.”

Now playing at Purdue, Morton scored 2,198 points for the Golden Tornado before graduating in 2020. Carney is sitting at 2,040 points entering Butler’s WPIAL Class 6A playoff opener against Norwin on Tuesday.

In between, Mattix Clement — now playing at Butler County Community College — scored 1,100 points at Butler.

“That’s a lot of points,” Coach Clement said. “But we score a lot of points. That’s the nature of our offense. When you have players like Ethan and Devin coming through, you want to surround them with shooters. That’s what we prepared our kids to do in the youth program.

“Yeah, I could have pulled the reins in offensively a little bit. Maybe Ethan and Devin wind up with 1,700 points, Mattix around 800, but there was no need. We’ve had a pretty good run playing the game the way we play it.”

Since Morton’s freshman season, Butler has played in three WPIAL championship games, won one of them, and advanced to the semifinal round last year.

“That’s a lot to soak in,” Carney said of all the points and team accomplishments. “When I’m in college sometime, I’m sure I’ll look back on my high school years and be pretty proud of it.”

Carney grew up in the North Allegheny School District before coming to Butler in eighth grade. He played junior high ball here with now-senior teammates Raine Gratzmiller and Charlie Kreinbucher.

“We had heard a lot about him,” Kreinbucher said. “We knew Devin could score. Coming through this program with two guys hitting 2,000 points is crazy.

“They never took any shots away from me because I never shot the ball much anyway.”

Gratzmiller has scored around 600 points in his high school career. He may have approached 1,000 himself if not surrounded by so much offensive talent.

“It’s been a privilege playing with those guys,” Gratzmiller said. “They are so talented. We came up with a way to play winning basketball while using that talent.

“As soon as Devin got here (in eighth grade), you could see he was the real thing. I remember how good he was in seventh grade and he had gotten even better. You could tell he was going to do special things.”

While scoring 2,000 points is a rarity — only nine players in WPIAL 6A have ever done so — Carney said he envisioned such success from as far back as his freshman year.

“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I worked for it,” he said. “It was always in my mind that I could do this. My teammates played a big part. Having so many great shooters on the floor with me made things a lot easier.”

Morton is as proud and excited about Carney’s accomplishment as anybody.

“Any time someone gets to join that (2,000-point) club in high school, it’s a very big deal,” Morton said. “It’s been cool to see him and the team continue on since I’ve graduated.

“Looking back, it is kind of amazing to say we had two 2,000-point scorers on that team, not to mention all the other great pieces we had between the seniors now and Madden (Clement), and Mattix and Mason (Montag), too. Devin took a lot of pressure off of me as a player at times when we played together, just because he has such a knack to score the ball.”

Carney’s scoring has come from plenty of different angles and spots on the court. He’s let loose with shots at times from nearly mid-court.

Clement admitted to taking criticism from the public for allowing such long-range shots to take place. He doesn’t care.

“I’ve seen Devin make shots that no one else in the WPIAL can make,” Clement said. “Sure, he misses some, but he hits a lot of them. Does he take some shots that are ill-advised? Sure he does. He’ll even admit that. But we’ve won a lot of games because of the way Devin plays the game.”

Carney recognizes and appreciates the free reign he and and his teammates have offensively.

“The way Coach allows us to play has gone a long way in our success,” Carney said. “He trusts us to make good decisions. We have freedom to take our shots and I’ve always appreciated that.”

Clement said high school basketball is a different game now than when he played 30 years ago.

“If Shawn Bellis (1,466 career points) was playing today, he’d score 2,000 points,” Clement said. “It’s definitely opened up. But seeing how hard Ethan and Devin have had to work to score, going up against teams like North Hills, Pine-Richland, North Allegheny every night ... that’s been a pleasure to watch.”