Seneca Valley senior ready to make up for lost time
Tri-State Sports & News Service
David Ritchie connected on a 3-point basket. Then another. And another. He added a couple free throws, hitting nothing but nylon, in leading his team to a furious fourth-quarter comeback against Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic.
That memorable outburst occurred two seasons ago, when Ritchie was starring for his former high school team, Eden Christian Academy in Sewickley. He would finish the season with averages of 22.1 points and 5.2 assists in helping Eden Christian to a 22-5 record and a spot in the WPIAL Class 1A quarterfinals.
The future looked bright for the 6-foot-2 shooting guard. Exceptionally bright. But the future would have to wait.
A Cranberry Township resident, Ritchie was forced to sit out last season after transferring to Seneca Valley, which is in his school district. The WPIAL ruled that the move was made, at least partially, for athletic intent.
Dejected, Ritchie spent all of last season watching his Seneca Valley teammates from the bench. He could practice, but it hardly quenched his thirst for competition.
“It was one of the hardest things I had to do,” Ritchie said. “Especially in our last game when we were playing Butler for a chance to make the playoffs. We lost and didn’t make it, and that hurt. I wanted to be out there helping my teammates, but there was nothing I could do.”
Now a senior, Ritchie looks to make up for lost time. He returns to action tonight against the host school at the Hempfield tournament. He’ll join starters Chris Hart (Seneca Valley’s leading returning scorer), Marcus Might, Jake Bunofsky and Dalton Peffer.
While he makes no predictions, Ritchie expects to be enlivened when the ball is tipped.
“It would feel good to get a couple baskets under my belt to start the game,” he said. “But it’s all about the rhythm of the game. I’ll do whatever I have to help us win.”
It is not a stretch to say Ritchie took a giant leap in going from Class 1A Eden Christian to 6A Seneca Valley. The Raiders play in a section that features 2017 WPIAL finalists Pine-Richland and Butler. Pine-Richland won its second consecutive WPIAL championship last season and went on to the PIAA final.
Veteran coach Victor Giannotta, for his part, expects Ritchie to handle the move up with aplomb.
“These kids play so much basketball against high-level competition in the offseason that it won’t be a problem,” said Giannotta, whose team finished 12-10, 5-7 Section 1, last season. “The major difference is that we’ll be playing a good team every night. In the smaller classifications, you don’t always have that. He just has to learn that, when something doesn’t go his way, to move on to the next play.”
From Giannotta’s perspective, Seneca Valley would have been a playoff team with Ritchie last season. He believes the sharpshooting senior, who can play both guard positions, would have pushed the Raiders to three or four more victories, minimum.
Even without Ritchie, Seneca Valley pulled off a rare exacta in beating Pine-Richland and Butler.
“David has great range,” said Giannotta, who won a PIAA title with Sewickley Academy in 1997 and has been to the WPIAL semifinals twice with Seneca Valley. “He can shoot the ball with no effort from 25 feet. I wouldn’t call him a knockdown shooter, but he’s extremely streaky and capable of making six or seven in a row. But don’t be fooled by his scoring numbers, he definitely wants to be an all-around basketball player.”
Given he missed all of last season, Ritchie has yet to receive a scholarship offer. However, he’s hoping to grab some attention in his final high school season.
“I’m getting a little bit of interest,” said Ritchie, an honors student with a 3.9 grade-point average. “I’m going to go out and give my best and then we’ll see what happens.”
At Eden Academy, Ritchie was a proven winner. The school went 41-12 in his two seasons, including a trip to the WPIAL Class 1A semifinals as a freshman. He averaged 12.7 points in ninth grade.
His goal is to bring that winning edge to a Seneca Valley team that could be a sleeper in Class 6A.
“I’ve been counting down the days since the end of last season,” said Ritchie, whose parents both played high school ball in West Virginia. “It feels great to get back to the sport I love. I know that we have the potential to win a lot of games and go to the playoffs, and I’ll do everything I can to help us get there.”