GIRLS COACH OF THE YEAR MIKE O’LARE • MOHAWK
Seasons like this don’t come around in Mohawk very often.
In 2020, the Warriors went 24- 3 and won their first WPIAL girls basketball title in school history, then won their first two state playoff games and reached the PIAA quarterfinals before the COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt end to their season. Plenty of talent returned for the 2021 season, but with all-state performer Karly McCutcheon graduating and four-time defending WPIAL Class 4A champion North Catholic dropping down into Mohawk’s section in Class 3A, it was fair to wonder if the Warriors would ever get that close to Hershey again.
Well, there’s no need to ponder “what could have been” anymore.
Led by Post-Gazette Fab 5 selection Paige Julian and all- section guards Nadia Lape and Hannah McDanel, Mohawk repeated as WPIAL Class 3A champion and played in the first PIAA championship game in program history, falling to Philadelphia powerhouse West Catholic, 67-56.
After losing back-to-back games to end the regular season, not many expected the Warriors to make it so far.
They only finished third in their section — one of the most grueling sections in the WPIAL. But they battled back to rattle off six consecutive wins in a historic postseason run and finished the season 19-5 overall.
For that, Mike O’Lare is the Post-Gazette Coach of the Year. The award takes into consideration all coaches in the WPIAL and City League.
“That’s pretty cool,” O’Lare said. “You get that when you get a Fab 5 kid.”
O’Lare, 42, is a health and physical education teacher in the Mohawk School District, but he never had any ties to the area before he got the teaching gig. He helped out with the boys program for two years before the girls job opened up in 2006, and he jumped at the opportunity.
Now, 15 years later, he’s a two-time WPIAL champion who has transformed Mohawk into a major force in Class 3A.
“They had won three games the year before [I took over],” O’Lare said. “[We were] just taking something fresh and trying to build it. And there were many times where you didn’t know if you could. But I’ve been really blessed to have some awesome coaches who have stayed with me for a long
period of time, where the kids have as much faith in them as me.”
And to think, only a few months ago, nobody even knew if there would be a high school basketball season. Teams had no real offseason or preseason training camps going into the winter, and only a few days before the regular season was set to begin on Dec. 11, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office imposed a mandatory three-week shutdown for all scholastic athletic activities from Dec. 12 to Jan. 4.
Not knowing if his team would get the chance to play again after the shutdown, O’Lare decided to play a doubleheader on opening night, and the Warriors defeated West Greene, 75-66, and St. Joseph, 67-29.
“We knew with three weeks to go home, we’re not going to be able to do anything. At least we had that,” O’Lare said. “It was more about our mental health, to be honest. Just to be able to compete that night, not knowing if we would ever play again.”
Mohawk returned from the shutdown to win seven of its next eight games before losing at North Catholic, 54-38, in the first of three meetings between the teams this year.
Following the defeat, the Warriors went on another four-game winning streak before hosting the Trojanettes for a rematch on Feb. 22 — and again North Catholic came out on top, 58-49. Mohawk then dropped its regular-season finale vs. Laurel, 49-44, and had seemingly lost all its momentum going into the postseason.
There was something different about this Warriors team come playoff time, though — a certain tenacity and will to win that can’t quite be put into words.
The “big three” of Julian, Lape and McDanel took their games to new heights in the postseason, with each player taking turns being the star. All three scored in double figures in Mohawk’s 54-49 WPIAL championship win vs. North Catholic, as they combined for 42 of the team’s 54 points.
Not satisfied with winning backto-back titles, though, the Warriors still had unfinished business in the state playoffs.
First, Mohawk handled Punxsutawney, 68-52, then the Warriors welcomed unbeaten Forest Hills to their home court for a PIAA Class 3A semifinal matchup. Julian, Lape and McDanel put on the performance of a lifetime, combining for 67 points to propel Mohawk to a 7458 win in front of a raucous home crowd.
It was a surreal scene to witness, one that will likely never take place again given the unique nature of this year’s PIAA tournament, with some teams playing home games throughout the playoffs.
“It was so great to watch the community come forward to send us off and go to Hershey,” O’Lare said. “It had been since 1970, when our boys team made it. So you’re talking 51 years. … To be able to get to the WPIAL and state championship and play those games in your own gym — that was an awesome experience.”
Time will tell how O’Lare and his staff plan to replace the Warriors’ star trio in next year’s lineup, and attempting to three-peat as WPIAL Class 3A champions will be his biggest challenge yet. For now, he’s content to sit back and reflect on a remarkable run with this year’s group — and when they all look back on the anguish and disappointment caused by the pandemic, at least they’ll have a pair of WPIAL championships to remember it by.
“We kind of bookended it,” O’Lare said. “When you fit two WPIAL championships in the middle of it, to get shut down and then come back and have a chance to go to Hershey — there’s so many good stories in there.
“Because of how hard it was, I think we’ll remember all of it.”