When it comes to great players, one size doesn’t fit all.
Gabe Transue stands 6-foot-3 and while he can shoot from the outside, he was more of an inside player for Bethlehem Christian, getting to the basket in a variety of ways while also getting his share of rebounds.
Justin Manning, about eight inches shorter than Transue at 5-foot-8, was more of an outside threat for Notre Dame-Green Pond, tormenting teams from the perimeter, but also taking the ball to the rim when an opportunity presented itself.
But the one big thing they had in common in the 2025-26 boys basketball season was their ability to take over games and lead their teams to wins.
Transue and Manning both led their teams to District 11 championships and a combined record of 53-7.
For their impact on their team’s success and their overall leadership abilities, they are The Morning Call’s boys basketball players of the year for the 2025-26 season.
Gabe Transue
Transue averaged 29.1 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. He shot 57.4% from 2-point range and 35.8% from 3-point distance. He also had 88 assists, 83 steals and 40 blocks.
He ended his career with 2,257 points — second only to the legendary Larry Miller on the area’s all-time list of top boys scorers.
But despite putting Bethlehem Christian basketball on the map over the last three seasons when the team went 73-14, Transue ended his career with a nagging feeling.
“It was definitely a highlight to win back-to-back district championships and score more than 2,000 points,” he said. “But something I also think about is losing in the second round of states to the same team, Sankofa, which still haunts me a little bit. I wish we could have gotten over that hurdle, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
The Panthers were pointing to Sankofa all season long. But after losing to the Philadelphia team 75-66 team in 2025, Bethlehem Christian didn’t fare much better in an 82-74 a year later.
“I think we should have won both of those games, but it’s how the cookie crumbled I guess,” Transue said.
Transue scored 22 points in that game after scoring 26 in the team’s first-round PIAA win over Lourdes. He had 41 in the district finals against Weatherly.
While those might doubt Transue’s ability because he played primarily against Class A competition, Transue also shined against some of the area’s big boys.
He scored 20 points and had 11 rebounds in a loss to Nazareth and another 20 points in a win over Dieruff. He had 34 points on back-to-back nights in helping his team win the Slatington Rotary holiday tournament at Northern Lehigh and had 27 points and 10 rebounds in a setback at Allentown Central Catholic and tallied 29 points and 13 rebounds in a victory at Executive Education.
“No one gave us credit early on because they thought we were just a small school that played other Christian schools, but we started playing bigger teams in my junior and senior years and we got more recognition,” he said. “We won the small-school division at A-Town Throwdown in the summer, and the recognition started to come.”
Transue, who lives in Nazareth, has no regrets about playing out his career at Bethlehem Christian, which played its home games at In The Zone in Bath. Much like the entire program, he became more successful as the years went by.
“As a freshman I wasn’t much of a scorer,” he said. “I would pass the ball a lot and I was kind of scared to score. But I started playing AAU ball after my freshman year and that helped me be able to score and become a better overall athlete with my vertical leap and become stronger. I finished with 1,250 rebounds.”
He is headed to Gettysburg College and plans to continue to work on his game.
“I want to work more on my 3-point shot because in D3 basketball they shoot a lot more 3s and I definitely want to work on becoming a true point guard,” Transue said. “It might have been better for me if we played in the EPC, but I think we showed as a team, and I showed individually that we can play against those teams even though people think we couldn’t. Me and Myles [Harris] scored as much in those games as we did in any of the other games. We won some of those games. We held our own.”
Transue has two brothers and a younger sister. His older brother is a freshman at DeSales, and his younger brother is a multi-sport athlete at Bethlehem Catholic where he plays football, baseball and basketball. His sister plays basketball and volleyball at Bethlehem Christian.
Bethlehem Christian Matt DeJesus is thankful Transue helped to build his relatively new program that just completed its fifth season.
“Both Myles Harris [who is headed to Moravian University] and Gabe were a privilege to coach, and it was a pleasure to watch them both grow as players and people,” DeJesus said. “The impact they had on our program can’t be measured. But they also developed as good young men and that’s what is most humbling to me. They’ll always be part of our family. They’ll be missed, but it was a privilege to get to coach them.”
Transue is proud of what he accomplished as a player but has other goals in mine. His legacy?
“I just want to remember as God-fearing basketball player,”: he said. “Obviously, God comes first. I love basketball, but I can’t let it define me as a person.”
Justin Manning
Manning’s legacy at Notre Dame isn’t complete since he’s got another year to go.
He showed remarkable growth between his sophomore and junior seasons and if he continues to improve, he will undoubtedly be a top player-of-the-year candidate next winter.
After Isaiah Miles transferred from Notre Dame to the Phelps School and reclassified after his junior season, many thought the Crusaders might take a dip in success. Manning made sure that didn’t happen.
He averaged 21 points, three assists and two steals per game and shot 40.5% from 3-point range and 49.7% from inside the arc.
Voted by the league’s coaches as the Colonial League MVP, he scored 102 points in four PIAA games including 28 in the season-ending defeat to West Catholic. He will enter his senior season with 1,016 career points.
“Winning a district title, something Notre Dame hadn’t done since 2018, was speical and so was making a run in states,” Manning said. “I just want to make more history for this school.”
From a personal perspective, Manning knew he’d have to step up his game after the transfer of Miles and the graduation of Carmine Diaz. They were the team’s top two scorers in 2024-25, but Manning was third at 12.8 points per game.
“Once they both left, I knew I had to step up my scoring,” he said. “I knew Isaiah was leaving in late June and after I started to process that, I knew there were a lot of points that needed to be scored this year. Why not me? I knew we were going to be good after we made it to the quarterfinals of the A-Town Throwdown last summer. Coach Boyle had confidence we were going to be really good this year.”
Manning said one of his top highlights was winning the District 11 3A title after losing in the league semifinals.
“The district title game was amazing,” he said. “We were playing Executive and they had never lost a district game before. A lot of people thought we were going to lose, and we just wanted to prove them wrong. Then we won three state playoff games. It was amazing to get that far. We started playing great basketball at the right time.”
Manning is already excited about next season. He is happy he will enter his senior year without having to worry about the 1,000-point milestone.
“I just want to get bigger, stronger and have a great year and finish as the second all-time leading scorer in school history,” he said, noting that the late Jeff Dailey is No. 2 with 1,742 points. Brendan Boyle, the school’s all-time top scorer with 1,900 is probably unreachable.
“Next year we should have higher expectations to win everything,” Manning said. “I will start reaching out to schools after AAU season. I just people to think of me as someone who is lightning quick and loves to play basketball.”
Crusaders coach Pat Boyle is happy to have Manning around for one more season.
“Justin took his game to a whole different level this year and made some really good adjustments,” Boyle said. “He was phenomenal and made his teammates better. He wins with his heart. We beat Warrior Run in the state quarterfinal, and they had a 6-foot-7 Division 2 player, and another 6-foot-6 kid and Justin still had nine rebounds because he wanted to do whatever it took to win the game. We’re excited to see him grow as a player and see what happens next year.”
Past Morning Call players of the year
2000: Anthony Ross, Dieruff
2001: Danny Hinds, CCHS
2002, 03: Ray Barbosa, Allen
2004, 05: Jason Greene, Whitehall
2006: Terrence Roderick, Allen
2007: Brian Hunter, Emmaus
2008: Travis Stoudt, Dieruff
2009: Jaleel Clark, Parkland
2010: Darrun Hilliard, Liberty
2011: Hilliard, Liberty, and Jalen Cannon, Allen
2012: Greg Bobal, Emmaus
2013, 14: Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman, CCHS
2015: Devante Cross, Parkland, and Sam Iorio, Parkland
2016: Sam Iorio, Parkland
2017: Sam Iorio, Parkland; David Kachelries, Emmaus; and Tyrese Martin, Allen
2018: Ryan Young, Bethlehem Catholic
2019: Justin Paz, Bethlehem Catholic
2020: Caleb and Malek Mims, Freedom
2021: Jevin Muniz, Executive
2022: Brendan Boyle, Notre Dame-GP, and Christian Fermin, PM West
2023, 24: Nick Coval, Parkland
2025: Jahrel Vigo, Allentown CCHS