Tigers ride balance to title, 50-39
North Allegheny tops Bethel Park to redeem 2016 loss
This time a year ago, North Allegheny coach Spencer Stefko sat in a hallway leading to the Petersen Events Center floor with a couple of players. He told them to remember that feeling in the moments after their WPIAL championship loss to Norwin.
The Tigers went on to make a run to the PIAA semifinals, but since then, what happened a season ago in the same building they played Saturday night served as constant motivation to get back. And once they got back, to redeem themselves. Mission accomplished. Sophomore guard Rachel Martindale sank five 3-pointers to finish with 23 points and top-seeded North Allegheny beat Bethel Park, 50-39, in the Class 6A girls title game Saturday night. It is the first crown for the Tigers since 1972, when girls basketball wasn’t fully sponsored yet by the WPIAL and the league was called the Western Pennsylvania Girls Athletic League.
“It’s definitely a good feeling,” senior Hailey Zeise said. “It’s ‘finally.’ My freshman year we made it so close, sophomore year so close, last year even closer.”
Ah, yes, last year — when the Tigers led Norwin by 13 entering the fourth quarter only to see it all evaporate.
But in 2017, North Allegheny (24-1) started hot and stayed hot, taking an early 12-6 lead on four 3-pointers in the first five minutes. The Tigers led, 14-9, after the first quarter and took a 25-19 lead at halftime after Martindale beat the buzzer from beyond the arc with four seconds left.
As a team, North Allegheny shot 45.7 percent from the floor, 50 percent in the second half. The Tigers also made all 11 of their freethrow attempts, with Martindale going 6 for 6, all in the final minutes to put the game away.
“Ice in your veins, ice in your veins,” is the familiar refrain from Stefko she heard on every trip to the line.
Seventh-seeded Bethel Park’s splendid WPIAL playoff run went through North Allegheny, but not past it. The upstart Blackhawks (19-7) upset No. 2 Pine-Richland and No. 3 Penn Hills in the quarterfinals and semifinals in North Allegheny’s gym, but when it came time to tame the Tigers, they didn’t have enough answers for Stefko’s wealth of playmakers.
Bethel Park got to within one at 36-35 on an Emma Papalia 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, but North Allegheny was not in the mood to squander another fourth-quarter lead in a WPIAL final.
“Honestly, it was like we were playing whack-amole,” Bethel Park coach Jonna Burke said of trying to defend North Allegheny down the stretch. “One down, the next popped up — that’s what happened. We’re used to getting big stops. The last few games, that’s what’s gotten us here was getting big stops, and they just had too many weapons for us to continually get big stops.”
Senior standout Justina Mascaro led the Blackhawks with 13 points, and junior point guard Kamryn Lach added 12 on four 3-pointers. This was Bethel Park’s first loss with a healthy Mascaro, the team’s leading scorer last season who returned nine games ago after recovering from a torn ACL in the offseason.
“Coaching against Justina Mascaro, both last year and this year, it’s like coaching against Braveheart,” Stefko said. “The fact that Justina Mascaro has not yet signed a Division I scholarship is insane to me.”
Credit to Mascaro, but his Tigers are no slouches. Zeise, juniors Piper Morningstar, Madelyn Fischer, Courtney Roman and Audrey Lane, and sophomore Brynn Serbin did their part to take the pressure off Martindale when she needed it, but also made sure she kept getting the ball.
Perhaps it was the most balanced effort by a team that only had one doublefigure scorer as you’ll ever see.
“These guys are good,” Stefko said of Zeise and Martindale seated next to him. “They’re not good enough to win a game by themselves. The kids around them have been incredible.” North Allegheny’s Hailey Zeise, right, battles Bethel Park’s Ashley Spence for a rebound in the WPIAL Class 6A girls championship Saturday at Petersen Events Center. said Pine-Richland coach Jeff Ackermann, who has won five championships, including three at Moon.
Pine-Richland (24-1) went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team. The Rams were the Post-Gazette’s preseason No. 1 team in 6A and never dropped from the spot.
“I think this one might mean a little more,” said Pine-Richland junior forward Phil Jurkovec, who scored a game-high 21 points. “We had to fight and scratch more for this one because everyone was coming for us all year.”
This game played out like so many for Pine-Richland this season. The Rams have a “Big Three” of Jurkovec (16 points per game), senior guard Andrew Petcash (21 ppg) and sophomore center Andrew Kristofic (11 ppg). Those three always seem to do their damage — and then some lesser-known player steps up with a big game. Against Butler, it was sophomore guard Greg Shulkosky, who came off the bench to convert three 3-pointers and score 11 points. Petcash scored 18 and Kristofic 14.