Union’s big finish nabs win
Fruehstorfer’s scoring delivers school’s 1st title
Union won its first championship in school history, defeating Aquinas Academy 52-35 in the WPIAL Class 1A girls title game on Saturday morning at Petersen Events Center. Although the score suggests otherwise, this gamewas close until the end.
Union survived 25 total turnovers, helped to that ended by Kylie Fruehstorfer, who led all scorers with 20 points. Kelly Cleaver and Zoe Lapri were close behind with 14 and 10 points, respectively.
“We worked real hard to get to this point, and the hard work these girls have done and their teammates, it finally pays off for them,” Union coach Rob Nogay said. “It couldn’t be any more special moment.”
Aquinas looked out of sorts to begin the game, with multiple turnovers and multiple fouls on the defensive end that led to Union scoring the game’s first three points on free throws. Aquinas was held scoreless until the 4:15 mark of the first period when Vicky Taylor hit a layup to makeit 3-2.
Around the 2:30 mark, Kayla Fruehstorfer made the game’s first field goal for Union as she hit a 3-pointer to pad the lead, 6-2. Aquinas’s Tess Duerr hit a layup to cut the lead to, 6-4, which would stay as the score going into thesecond quarter.
The first quarter was chock-full of turnovers and bad passes from both teams, contributing to the low score.
but the second quarter picked up right away. Elle Junker hit a 3-pointer on back-to-back possessions for Aquinas, which put them within 11-10.
After a steal and fastbreak layup from Junker, Aquinas had its first lead of the game, 12-11. Union then turned cold as the turnovers began to pile up. Meanwhile, Junker’s heat check never seemed to come as she hit her third 3pointer of the quarter. Union was able to keep things close at the half, but Aquinas still led 17-16 at intermission.
“Ellie Junker was hurting us in the first half, and we switched up our defense a little bit and tried to take her away,” Nogay said, “We made a few adjustments
there, tried to take her away. We moved on offense a little bit to get Kelly the ball a little bit more, and that seemed to workout for us.”
Aquinas picked up right where it left off, scoring on the first possession of the third quarter, then forced a stop defensively. Union got off to a slow start, not scoring until the 5-minute mark, but it was enough to get the Scotties rolling. They forced a steal, and then Kylie Fruehstorfer hit a 3 in transition to make it 22-20. A few minutes later, Fruehstorfer hit another 3-pointer to regain the lead for the Scotties, 23-22.
The remainder of the third quarter was back and forth, with three lead changes and two ties. Ultimately neither team had the edge going into the fourth quarter, as the scorewas tied up at 29.
Union finally started showing why it earned the No. 1 overall seed as it began the fourth quarter on a 12-2 run, increasing the lead to 41-31. The Scotties’ rim seemed to be 10 feet wide, as they were nearly perfect in the fourth quarter, shooting 66.7% (8 for 12) from the field.
Aquinas tried climbing back into the game, but with poor shooting in the fourth quarter (8.3%, 1 for 12), the Union offense was just too muchto match.