Bears take home first WPIAL title
Tri-State Sports & News Service
Regardless of the outcome of the WPIAL Class 1A girls championship, one of the programs was going to bring home the championship for the first time in school history. Winchester Thurston made sure it was them.
The No. 1-seeded Bears (211) ended the game on a 17-3 run to defeat No. 2 Cornell (205), 52-41, Friday afternoon at Petersen Events Center.
“This is so special for us,” WInchester Thurston coach Monica Williams said. “It is very exciting for the school. I am trying to take it all in. I have been here for 15 years. When I came in, we didn’t even play in the WPIAL. I was the middle school coach. We have been getting better every year. They do everything the right way.”
The game was a rematch of a Dec. 12 meeting when Winchester Thurston led the whole way, but was fortunate to hang on to a 62-59 win. The championship Friday had the same feel.
The Bears led the entire game, but the Raiders were never out of it. With 7:39 left in the game, Cornell took its first lead at 36-35. The Raiders comeback started in the third quarter and was led by Daeja Quick. Quick scored 12 of her 20 points in a row at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth. The lead was shortlived when the Raiders went scoreless for 6:34 on the Bears’ championship run.
“I am very proud of my team,” Cornell coach Shawn Urbano said. “We have never been here before. Our goal is to get back here. We had a goal to win our section and we did that. We wanted to get to the WP I AL championship and we did that even though we didn’t win. We were able to take the lead but credit to them.”
All season long Winchester Thurston was led by juniors Ayanna Townsend and Gia Thorpe and Friday was no different. Townsend took advantage of her 6-foot-2 frame, finishing with 22 points and 17 rebounds. Thorpe, a 5-foot-8 guard, also finished with a double-double, registering 16 points and 12 rebounds. Thorpe joined the Bears this year after transferring from Shaler.
“We never had Gia’s presence on our team,” Williams said. “This is her first year. She controls a lot. She knows she needs to pace herself to last the whole game. That is why she was starting slow at the beginning. I told her she needed to be more aggressive in the second half.”