C.W. North Catholic stifles Villa Maria
The Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic girls basketball team saw its season end a year ago with a loss to Villa Maria Academy in the PIAA quarterfinals. North Catholic apparently got a little defensive about that loss.
North Catholic ended Villa Maria’s season this time as the Trojanettes defeated the perennial Erie power, 40-30, in a PIAA 4A quarterfinal Saturday at North Hills.
“They played some strong defense, too, but it was our defense that was the deciding factor,” North Catholic coach Molly Rottmann said.
Villa Maria came into the game averaging 57 points and featuring two Division I college recruits in Molly Mraz (Richmond) and Sydney Palermo (Bowling Green). But Mraz was held to nine points while Palermo scored only three. The 30 points was the lowest in a game this year for Villa Maria.
Villa Maria (21-5), a PIAA finalist the past two years, led at halftime, 16-15, but North Catholic outscored the Victors, 11-4, in the third quarter to take control. Center Danie Short scored nine of her 10 points in the second half for North Catholic. She also finished with 15 rebounds while Kylee Lewandowski added 10 points. Tess Myers scored all eight of her points in the second half for North Catholic (253).
Class 5A girls
Archbishop Carroll 51, Oakland Catholic 32: Oakland Catholic, the WPIAL runner-up, shot only 30 percent (14 of 46) from the field and fell to Archbishop Carroll (21-7) in a quarterfinal at Chambersburg. Oakland Catholic (19-10) trailed at halftime, 28-13. Jayde Boyd had nine points for Oakland Catholic.
Class 2A boys
Sewickley Academy 64, Jeannette 56: The quarterfinal win at North Hills enabled Sewickley Academy (24-4) to run its postseason winning streak to 14 games dating to a season ago. Sewickley Academy took a 19-10 lead after the first quarter and Jeannette could never catch up. Sewickley Academy shot 50 percent (16 of 32) from the field and also made seven 3-pointers. Sophomore Isaiah Smith had 16 points to lead Sewickley Academy, David Groetsch added 12 and Isaiah Warfield 10. Tre Cunningham had 17 for Jeannette (21-5).
OLSH 69, West Middlesex 60: West Middlesex (217) made 13 3-pointers, but the Big Reds still came up short in this quarterfinal at Armstrong. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (25-3) held a 31-26 halftime lead, but took control of the game in the third quarter when it outscored West Middlesex, 2013. Daren DiMichele scored 10 of his 15 points in the third quarter for OLSH. Austing Wigley led OLSH with 18 and Dante Spadafora added 17. OLSH’s win sets up another showdown with Sewickley Academy in the PIAA semifinals. The two teams split two close games in the regular season and then Sewickley Academy defeated OLSH, 63-59, in the WPIAL final. OLSH has made it to the semifinals for the first time in school history.