Siblings share in the WPIAL gold
Tri-State Sports & News Service
A senior captain named Dave helped Sewickley Academy win a WPIAL boys basketball championship last Friday.
One night later, a freshman named Lizzy led North Allegheny to a WPIAL girls basketball title.
Dave’s coach calls him a leader and said he is like having an assistant coach on the floor.
Lizzy’s coach calls her tough and gritty.
The two call each other brother and sister.
A brother and sister winning WPIAL basketball championships the same season is rare, and doing it at different schools make the Groetsch siblings even more unique.
The two live in Franklin Park with their parents, Dave and Julie. Dad played basketball at North Allegheny and then at Westminster, and his basketball genes have been passed down to his three children. The oldest, Chris, was a standout for Sewickley Academy last season and now plays at Johns Hopkins.
Dave Groetsch, a 6-foot-1 guard, is a two-year starter for Sewickley Academy (214), which has won back-toback WPIAL Class 2A titles and will begin defense of its PIAA title Saturday. During last year’s championship season, one of their biggest fans was an eighth-grader at Ingomar Middle School.
“I don’t think I missed a game,” Lizzy Groetsch said.
Lizzy was absent for the game a Friday ago — a 63-59 triumph against Our Lady of the Sacred Heart — because her team was practicing, but said she watched video of it when she got home. Dave scored 13 points and converted two big free throws with 19 seconds left to help preserve the win.
Dave is the fifth-leading scorer on a team that includes three talented sophomores and a junior who was named all-state last season. His contributions aren’t always found on the stat sheet.
“He’s just an incredibly trusting individual who’s allowed the sophomores to grow as basketball players, as people,” Sewickley Academy coach Win Palmer said. “Early in the season with all of these talented players, naturally players are going to make some mistakes. Dave has always stayed with the theory, trust the process.”
While Dave came into his senior season as a returning starter, Lizzy entered her freshman season as the new girl trying to fit in. North Allegheny lost only one senior from last year’s team that won a WPIAL Class 6A championship and advanced to the PIAA title game.
“She did some really nice things in eighth grade. She could have come in and tried to force her way, whatever, but she wanted to be a part of a puzzle,” said North Allegheny coach Spencer Stefko. “Some nights, she’ll shoot the ball two or three times and won’t score, but still affects the game.”
A 5-10 guard, Lizzy eventually earned a spot in the starting lineup and is averaging 8 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists a game. Playing on the WPIAL’s biggest stage, she scored a teamhigh 18 points as North Allegheny (25-0) defeated Peters Township, 79-48, for the WPIAL championship. She made her first seven shots and finished 7 of 8 from the field.
Dave left Petersen Events Center impressed with his sister’s performance.
“I thought she played really well. She’s really young and composed herself even better than myself as a junior,” he said.
There have been some intense battles on the court in the Groetsch family driveway, beginning with Chris and Dave. When Lizzy was added to the mix, nothing really changed.
“We’ve had a lot of brawls in our driveway through the years. They never take it easy on me. They beat me up a little bit. I think it made me tougher,” Lizzy said.
Dave probably could have played basketball in college, but has elected instead to attend Notre Dame and pursue a business degree.
It might not be much longer before Lizzy is one of the WPIAL’s biggest stars.
“Honestly, I just really want to have fun playing. It’s so fun for me,” Lizzy said. “I would love to play in college. That’s one of my biggest goals. I’m working really hard. I just want to improve every day.”
In the Stephen Curry era, 3-point shooting and long “NBA” 3’s are all the rage.
Many teams are becoming increasingly guard- and perimeter-shooting centric, even at the high school level.
One team that’s not following suit, however, just knocked off two-time defending WPIAL champion PineRichland, 60-56, in Saturday’s WPIAL Class 6A championship.
That team, of course, is Penn Hills.
What led to the Indians’ fifth title, coach Dan DeRose said, is sticking to what it does best, a more “oldschool” approach.
“It was just coming together and on the defensive end,” DeRose, in his third year as coach, said. “All the teams that you more or less play in the playoffs, or even throughout the year, are guard-oriented or perimetershooting teams, which is not really our strength. I tell these guys all the time, we can show people that you can win basketball games without playing behind the arc.”
Penn Hills attempted a total of 27 3-pointers through four playoff games, with opponents attempting 68 and making 16 (23.5 percent). In the championship game, the Indians attempted five 3pointers, making one, with the Rams attempting 17 3pointers, making five.
The Indians are led by 6foot-5 Daivon Stephens, who averages 18.3 points, 8.5 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.2 steals per game along with 61 Cory Fulton, who adds 14.3 points, 4.5 assists and 2.3 steals per game.
In his years at Penn Hills helm, DeRose’s philosophy has been to dominate inside and have a stifling defense.
“We don’t have that and we’re not trying to be that makeup of a team and I’m not that kind of makeup of a coach,” DeRose said. “We’re going to try to do it more conventionally, get layups, get baskets, get to the free-throw line.”
“It’s been that way all three years there and even