Upper St. Clair on to quarters for fourth time
Upper St. Clair coach Danny Holzer believes his team has been playing its best basketball of the season the past few weeks. It took a quarter before the Panthers showed that Wednesday night.
After somewhat of a slow start, Upper St. Clair busted loose for 23 points in the second quarter and went on to defeat State College, 63-43, in a PIAA Class 6A second-round game at Pitt-Johnstown. The win puts Upper St. Clair (22-5), the WPIAL champ, into the quarterfinals for only the fourth time in school history.
Against State College (1313), Upper St. Clair led by only 13-10 after the first quarter, but upped the advantage to 36-20 at halftime.
“We were a little sluggish in the first quarter, maybe because of the long bus ride,” Holzer said. “In the second quarter, we got rolling. We had five 3’s in the second quarter.”
Junior center Tyler Robbins finished with 15 points while senior guard Brett Meinert had 11 points, including three 3pointers, and senior guard Christian Ito 10. Upper St. Clair had 10 3-pointers while State College had only three.
“I think our half-court defense really helped,” Holzer said. “We forced them to take tough shots, they rushed some shots and that led to some transition offense for us.”
Class 3A
Mohawk 55, Ellwood City 50: The win at New Castle puts Mohawk in the quarterfinals for only the second time in school history. The only other time was 54 years ago. Ellwood City’s Joseph Roth scored with 4:50 to tie the game, 45-45. Mohawk did not score a basket the rest of the way, but went 10 of 14 from the free-throw line. Mohawk held a 51- 50 lead when Keigan Hopper made one of two free throws with 21 seconds left. Roth missed a shot with 15 seconds left and Hopper made two free throws with 13 seconds remaining.
Sophomore Bobby Fadden led Mohawk with 28 points. The loss ended Roth’s splendid career. He finished as the 27th leading scorer in WPIAL history with 2,109 points and also had close to 1,200 rebounds. Roth will compete in the PIAA swimming championships Friday and Saturday at Bucknell.
Deer Lakes 67, Forest Hills 51: Billy Schaeffer score 22 points, including the 1,000th of his career, to lead the Lancers (23-4) to the win at Armstrong. Forest Hills (21-5) got to within 47-43 in the fourth quarter, but Deer Lakes came on strong from there. Nathaniel Moore had 17 and Wayne Love 13 for Deer Lakes.
Class 2A
Aliquippa 79, Eisenhower 47: WPIAL champ Aliquippa (23-5) led by only three points after the first quarter, but upped the advantage to 41-14 at halftime against Eisenhower (21-6) at Edinboro University. Sophomore Josh Pratt led Aliquippa with 23 points.
Fort Cherry 88, Serra 71: The win put Fort Cherry (22-6) into the quarterfinals for only the second time. The other was when the Rangers won a state title in 1961. Blake Sweder had 21 points, Derek Errett 20, Shane Cornali 19 and Matt Sieg 10 for Fort Cherry.
Jeannette 48, Greensburg Central Catholic 46 (OT): The game was tied at 39 after regulation and Jeannette (18-9) pulled out the win in the extra period against Greensburg Central Catholic (24-4). Jeannette lost to Greensburg Central twice in the regular season by 27 and 22 points.