New Castle eyes exclamation point
Last year’s New Castle team put an exclamation point on its season by winning a WPIAL title.
But after graduating all five starters and not returning anyone who even played in that championship game, a young and inexperienced New Castle team has had another type of punctuation attached to its name the past few months. Question marks.
“We lost our top six guys from last year and there’s so much uncertainty that comes with that,” coach Ralph Blundo said. “We grew and got better as the year went on. If we had not demonstrated that growth and worked hard, we might not even be in the playoffs.”
Instead, the Red Hurricanes did grow and work hard. So much so that they enter the WPIAL Class 4A playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
New Castle (18-4) has won nine of its past 10 games. If it wins its next three, it will add to its trophy case of 12 WPIAL titles. The Red Hurricanes have a first-round bye and play their playoff opener Feb. 23 against the winner of Wednesday’s game between Freeport and Ringgold.
While a surprise to some, capturing the Section 2 title and beginning the WPIAL playoffs as the top seed didn’t come as a shock to Donte Burnett, one of the team’s three seniors.
“Everyone thought that we wouldn’t be here, but we always knew we would,” Burnett said.
Burnett and fellow senior Drew Cox are the only current players who saw meaningful minutes last season. Junior Demetris McKnight, the team’s leading scorer, didn’t even come out for the team last season. Two other key players, freshmen Michael Wells and Michael Graham, were in eighth grade.
“When you’re inexperienced, you just have to make mistakes in order to learn,” Blundo said. “Guys have been really good with film study, seeing what they’re doing wrong. We certainly have a long way to go in terms of where we want to be, but we’ve improved at a really good pace.”
Winchester Thurston
Winchester Thurston (165) last week won a section title for the first time and enters the Class 2A playoffs as the No. 4 seed. Coach Jordan Marks believes his team could make a run at a title. A big reason for that is the presence of 6-foot-6 junior guard-forward Dusan Krivokapic.
“We have a top five player in the WPIAL and no one knows about him. I’ve coached all of them. He’s up there with [Allderdice’s] Jackson [Blaufeld] and [Butler’s] Ethan [Morton],” said Marks, who has guided the Bears to the playoffs in each of his three seasons. “Any time you have a top five player in the WPIAL, it gives you a fighting chance.”
Krivokapic is averaging 23 points and 14 rebounds per game. He moved into the area from Montenegro prior to his sophomore year. This will be Krivokapic’s final year at Winchester Thurston. He is already 18 years old, and Marks said he will either attend a prep school next year or graduate early and enroll in college. Marks said Division I schools are showing interest.
But the Bears have more than just Krivokapic. Among their other top players are 6-3 junior point guard Igor Karusewicz, sharpshooting senior guard Jake Rabner and 6-2 freshman forward Langston Moses, who has six double-doubles.
After a first-round bye, Winchester Thurston will play the South Side BeaverBrentwood winner in the quarterfinals Feb. 22.
Ringgold
Ringgold’s Phil Pergola is in his 49th season as a head coach and has won 625 career games, but even someone who has been around the game for as long as him sees something new every now and then. Pergola said he can’t remember one of his teams making such a drastic improvement from one season to the next. Last season, the Rams went 3-19. This season, they are 13-8 and finished tied for second place in Class 4A Section 3. The Rams will play their first playoff game since 2011 when they take on Freeport (11-9) in a first-round game Wednesday at Gateway.
“We’ve been young these last few years,” Pergola said. “Our three mainstay kids that are juniors, we thought they would start for us as sophomores, but during the course of the year never played one minute together because of injuries. They worked hard and are doing good things. We knew we had a good team, but we didn’t think we’d finish in second place.”
The three juniors Pergola referenced are guard Chris Peccon and forwards Luke Wyvratt and Ben Lawrence. Peccon leads the Rams in scoring with 18 points per game.