South Fayette’s Joe Alcorn drives to the basket between two Montour defenders in a 53-52 win Friday night at Montour.
Blackhawk has failed to win a non-section game
The Blackhawk Cougars added another chapter Friday night to one of the strangest stories in WPIAL basketball. The team that can’t win a non-section game now has a section championship within reach.
One more win is all it will take for Blackhawk to win a section title after the Cougars defeated Ambridge, 55-47, in front of a large crowd at Ambridge.
In a battle between two teams tied for first place in WPIAL Class 4A Section 2, Blackhawk led by only one point with 1:30 left, but Blackhawk outscored Ambridge, 7-0, down the stretch. Blackhawk was impressive in the final few minutes, executing a spread offense that coach Brooks Roorback just installed this week.
Now the strange but true stuff: Has a team ever won a section title and lost every non-section game? Blackhawk’s record overall is 8-9. The Cougars have played seven non-section games and lost every one. But Blackhawk has played 10 section games and is 8-2.
“We might be making history. You’ll have to look in that one,” Blackhawk senior Ryan Heckathorn said with a laugh. “It is kind of crazy how this has worked out. I don’t know why.”
Blackhawk has two section games left against Quaker Valley and Beaver. If Blackhawk wins one of them, the Cougars clinch at least a tie for the section title. The previous time Blackhawk won a section championship was 2003, when legendary John Miller was coach and Roorback was in seventh grade at Blackhawk.
“We schedule really hard [in non-section games] every year,” Roorback said. “We want a hard schedule to prepare us for this section. We feel like we’ve done that this year, even though we’re not winning those [non-section games].”
Heckathorn said, “That New Castle win early in the season was big for us to get some confidence. But the losses showed us our weaknesses. We addressed them in practice and that helped us out.”
Ambridge (12-5, 7-3) was hoping for a win to get closer to only its second section title since 1972. The game must have been big. It even brought out legendary former Ambridge player Dennis Wuycik, who starred on the great 1967 Bridgers team before going on to play at the University of North Carolina.
Ambridge had a size advantage with 6foot-7 Liam Buck and 6-6 Isaiah Thomas in the starting lineup. Plus, 6-8 Enire Bowens came off the bench.
But the size advantage didn’t seem to matter much. Buck scored 12 points, but was the only Ambridge player in double figures.
Blackhawk played a diamond-and-one defense much of the second half to control Thomas. Four players were in a zone and one guarded Thomas man-to-man. Thomas got only one shot in the third quarter and five total in the second half and finished with nine points.
When Blackhawk opened up a six-point lead with 5:15 left, the Cougars spread the court, bringing Ambridge out of its 1-2-2 zone defense.
“We just put that offense in for this game because they have those bigs, and we wanted to try and bring them out and use that to our advantage,” Heckathorn said.
Blackhawk took only six shots in the final quarter and all were close to the basket. The Cougars made four and also made 8 of their first 10 free throws in the final quarter.
“We have guys who aren’t as big [as Ambridge], but they’re physical and they know how to play the game,” Roorback said.
Blackhawk had three players in double figures. Senior guard Marco Borello scored 16 points, 11 in the second half. He was 7 of 8 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter. Heckathorn added 15, making 7 of 10 shots and scoring seven points in the final quarter. Senior James Darno added 12.
Blackhawk took only 32 shots for the game.
“Winning the section is big and exciting, but we have bigger goals, too,” Roorback said. “We want to go to the playoffs and make a run.”