West Greene presses the issue
Tri-State Sports & News Service
The West Virginia men’s basketball team has been dubbed “Press Virginia” in recent seasons due to the heavy dose of defensive pressure they administer to opponents and the large amount of turnovers they force.
About 45 minutes up the road in Greene County, a high school girls team has developeda similar reputation.
West Greene — or better yet, “Press Greene” — has been outstanding defensively and forces a ridiculous 39 turnovers per game. The Pioneers (19-1) allow 26.1 points a game, which is not only the WPIAL’s stingiest defense this season, but also one of the stingiest the district has seen in the past 15 years. Since 2003, only two teams have given up fewer than 30 points a game in a season — Sewickley Academy in 2014 (25.3) and California in 2015 (26.6). This West Greene team has a chance to join some exclusive company.
“We try to wear people down with our press,” West Greene coach Jordan Watsonsaid. “Defensively, we’ve improved by nine points since last year. I think our half-court defense has gotten a lot better and our press is better than last year.”
The West Greene program is thriving, which in some ways is hard to believe considering the Pioneers didn’t even win a game three seasons ago. But last year the Pioneers went 19-6, won their first section title since 2000, and advanced to the WPIAL Class 1A semifinals. They now hope to become the first Greene County team to win a WPIAL championship.
Having the Lampe twins on their side definitely helps. Madison and McKenna Lampe are junior guards who have already surpassed 1,000 career points. Madison leads West Greene in scoring with 14.8 points a game and McKenna is second at 13.5. Each is averaging better than five steals per game.
Kaitlyn Rizor is another talented junior guard, and West Greene starts two freshmen — point guard Jersey Wise and guard Elizabeth Brudnock.
West Greene’s only loss came at Class 1A No. 1 Winchester Thurston, 58-38, on Jan. 9. Winchester Thurston defeated West Greene, 55-50, in last year’s semifinals before going on to win the championship.
East Allegheny
When East Allegheny needs a big basket, the Wildcats typically turn to senior guard Amani Johnson, who ranks second in the WPIAL in scoring and has collected more than 2,000 career points.
But when the Wildcats need to make a splash play defensively, it’s another Johnson who typically comes through.
Sophomore Amaia Johnson — Amani’s sister — has been a defensive spark plug for East Allegheny (20-0), which entered Thursday’s play as one of two unbeaten WPIAL teams. Johnson, also the starting goalkeeper on East Allegheny’s soccer team, does a great job of keeping basketball opponents from scoring, too. She’s averaging 5.1 steals per game for the Wildcats, who surrender 29.6 points a game.
“She’s the hand that turns the screwdriver,” East Allegheny coach Mike Osiecki said. “She’s really kickstarted the defense. A lot of the defense is what she produces. She has tremendously matured since last year. I can’t say enough about her. There’s definitely a lot of stuff she has to work on. But she has talent and athleticism, and she’s doing a lot off that. She’s a smart basketball player.”
Amaia is a few inches taller than her sister — Amaia is 5-9 and Amani 5-6. Her height and length allows her to play guard and forward and defend the one through five positions. She ranks second on the team in scoring with 12 points per game and is also averaging 5.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists.
When Amani takes her talents to Kennesaw State after this season, little sister will move into an even bigger role.
“This is good on-the-job training,” Osiecki said.
Amaia and Amani’s father, Warner, is one of the team’s assistant coaches.
South Allegheny
After South Allegheny won at Brownsville last week, the Gladiators very well might have partied like it was 2005. South Allegheny ended a long playoff drought when it clinched a spot out of Class 3A Section 2. The Gladiators will be making their first postseason appearance in 13 years. They entered Wednesday with a 12-7 record, which is just the third time since 2005 that they’ve won more than five games. Fourth-year coach Shaun Johnston guided them to 13 wins last season, but the Gladiators fell one section win shy of qualifying for the playoffs.