Practice pays off, at

Barrage of 3s paves way to win in playoff opener

Nate Leopold says he and his Franklin Regional teammates are often terrific shooters in practice. But that marksmanship hasn’t always transferred to games.

Franklin Regional opened the WPIAL playoffs Tuesday night, and the Panthers might as well have worn their practice gear the way they shot.

Franklin Regional ganged up behind the 3-point line with six players making 3-pointers. When target practice finished, the Panthers had dusted off Trinity, 80-69, in a Class 5A first-round game. The win puts Franklin Regional, the No. 10 seed, into the quarterfinals for only the fifth time.

Franklin Regional made 12 3-pointers and shot 44 percent behind the arc.

“We had 12 3-pointers?” Leopold said with surprise when told of his team’s shooting. “I knew we were knocking them down pretty good, but that’s a lot.” History says it’s a lot. The 12 3-pointers ties for the 10th-best mark in the history of the WPIAL playoffs. Among the six players who made 3s, two came off the bench to combine for six.

Junior guard Aidan Fisch had three and 11 points while senior guard Tyler Giles also had three and 11 points. Hunter Stonecheck, a 6-foot-4 junior forward, scored a team-high 15 points, but he did not have a 3-pointer.

Zane Flynn had two 3-pointers while Leopold, Aiden Fisch from Franklin Regional jumps through the Trinity defense to attempt a shot Tuesday at Baldwin High School. Franklin Regional won, 80-69. David Baker, Tyler Watson and Aidan Sadoski each had one. Franklin Regional also made 14 of 15 free throws.

“The last couple games we’ve started making more shots,” Leopold said. “This is the first time I think we’ve seen 3s go in like it’s practice.”

It was the fifth win in the past six games for Franklin Regional (13-10), a team that was plagued by injuries until the past few weeks.

“On good nights, we make seven or eight 3-pointers, so 12 3-pointers anybody will take, especially in a playoff game,” Franklin Regional coach Brad Midgley said.

“We like to play 10 guys and way back on December 16th we had 10 guys playing. Then, it just all fell apart with injuries.

“We never had that full rotation until recently. … We hope we’re peaking at the right time.”

The game was played at a torrid pace tin the first quarter.

There were seven 3-pointers in the first five minutes, and Trinity led, 24-23, after the first quarter.

Trinity (14-9), the No. 7 seed, was paced by junior point guard Joe Koroly, who had three 3-pointers in the first quarter and finished with 23 points. But it seemed Trinity ran out of gas in the fourth quarter.

Franklin Regional was ahead by four points after the third, but outscored Trinity, 10-3, in the first 3:15 of the fourth to grab a 67-56 lead. Fisch and Giles each had 3-pointers in the run.

For much of the game, Trinity’s defenders helped on Franklin Regional drives to the basket, leaving Franklin Regional shooters open.

“They kept pinching on defense when we would drive the middle, and we kept finding the open guy,” Leopold said.

Seven Franklin Regional players scored seven points or more.

“When everyone is a shooter, it balances the floor and lets everyone get good looks,” Leopold said.