Moon girls rebound from slow start

Edge WPIAL champ South Fayette on backs of Sunday, Theodorsson

The Moon girls had every reason to panic in the opening moments against South Fayette.

The Tigers were down eight points, missing their first eight shots and two free throws while committing a turnover.

But they didn’t panic. In fact, all things considered, they were fairly comfortable.

Moon clawed its way back after that early cold spell, Reilly Sunday scored nine of her 20 in the fourth quarter and the Tigers knocked off the WPIAL Class 5A champions, 46-45, in the second round of the PIAA playoffs Saturday at Peters Township High School.

“It looked like we didn’t do things right, but [they did] all the things we were saying all year … and they were playing hard,” Moon coach Megan Abbernante said. “The shots weren’t going in, but we knew that if we could out-tough them and outrebound them, we would have a shot.” They had that and more. South Fayette (23-5) had defeated another Section 1 foe, Chartiers Valley, to win the WPIAL title.

“We wanted to come back after they won the championship and get a good win,” Sunday said. “It’s not like you’re just beating anybody.”

South Fayette may have gotten off to a fast start, but the Lions also had their share of problems. Though they held a 13-6 lead after the first quarter, they couldn’t shake off Moon (21-5).

It didn’t help that they were only 2 for 13 from the floor in the second quarter. That allowed the Tigers to take their first lead of the game, 14-13, with 4:25 remaininguntil intermission.

“I thought we launched a lot of 3s where we had opportunities that we could have drove the ball to the rim and taken better shots,” South Fayette coach Bryan Bennett said. “I think they took us out of our sets.”

Mia Webber had 13 for South Fayette and Erica Hall had 10. But despite a balanced attack, the Lions couldn’t put enough distance between themselves and Moon to feel like they were in control.

“They’re athletic, they’re physical and it obviously affected us,” Bennett said. “We did not play our best basketball by any stretch of the imagination and it cost us.”

South Fayette led, 20-17, at halftime, but Moon began to assert itself early in the third quarter. Brianna Toal drained a shot from beyond the arc 25 seconds in to tie the score. Emma Theodorsson, who had eight of her 16 points in the third, hit a 3pointer to put the Tigers ahead, 23-22.

The lead see-sawed back and forth, changing hands seven times with three ties. Toal hit her second 3-pointer with 1:24 left in the third to give Moon a 33-30 lead, one it would not surrender.

Moon advances to the PIAA Class 5A quarterfinals for the first time since 2007. The Tigers will play McKeesport Wednesday at a site and time to be determined.

“We can’t worry about who we’re playing. We have to worry about ourselves,” Abbernante said. “We showed ourselves, in games that we do that, we can beat anyone.”