Penn Hills boys claim first championship in 15 years
16 points in the second half.
Pine-Richland was a twotime defending WPIAL champion and came into the game hoping to become only the second team in WPIAL history to win three consecutive championships in the highest classification. New Castle did it from 1997-99. Only seven teams in any classification have won three consecutive titles in more than 100 years of WPIAL basketball.
Pine-Richland coach Jeff Ackermann also was trying to become only the seventh coach in WPIAL history to win six championships. But Stephens and Fulton would have none of the history talk.
“They’re like a bad marriage,” Penn Hills coach Dan DeRose said with a laugh. “Those two just go at each other, and you have to separate them. Then they hug each other and get back together.”
Saturday night, Stephens and Fulton were hugging to celebrate a championship.
“I thought at times they took over the game,” said DeRose, who was the coach at Community College of Beaver County the previous time Penn Hills won a title.
Stephens made 7 of 12 shots from the field and 6foot Fulton 10 of 13 from the free-throw line.
“Stephens is a big, athletic guy,” said Pine-Richland coach Jeff Ackermann, who also won three WPIAL titles at Moon. “Stephens scored, but I thought he hurt us more on defense than anything else. On a lot of our drives, we weren’t able to score because of him.”
Pine-Richland led, 34-27, at halftime, thanks largely in part to Colin Luellen, who scored all 10 of his points in the first half. He averages only eight. But Luellen didn’t score again and Pine-Richland shot only 27 percent (9 of 33) in the second half. Penn Hills went on a 102 run in the first few minutes of the third quarter and took a 44-42 lead into the fourth.
“Truly, the game was won and lost in in the third quarter,” Ackermann said. “The first three minutes decided it.”
Pine-Richland’s guards only had seven points in the second half, all by Dan Petcash. Phil Jurkovec, a senior forward, led Pine-Richland with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Jurkovec, a Notre Dame football recruit, was trying to become only the second athlete in the history of the WPIAL to start on three consecutive basketball championship teams and also start at quarterback on a WPIAL champion. The other was Duquesne’s Kevin Price.
Penn Hills was extremely efficient offensively. The Indians took only five 3-pointers and made one, but shot 54 percent (19 of 35) for the game.
“Offensively, we were able to get what we wanted in the first half, but we needed to do a better job defensively,” DeRose said. “In the second half, I just think we did a better job of guarding the 3-point line.”
Both teams begin the PIAA playoffs next weekend and will play teams from their own WPIAL section. Pine-Richland will play Central Catholic while Penn Hills will play Fox Chapel. Pine-Richland split two games with Central Catholic while Penn Hills split two games against Fox Chapel.