All goes as planned as Chartiers-Houston advances
IMPERIAL – Typically, teams that start three freshmen and a sophomore don’t make the playoffs, much less advance in them.
Don’t tell that to the Chartiers-Houston girls basketball team.
Jala Youngblood scored 18 points and grabbed 16 rebounds and Alexa Williamson added 19 points and eight rebounds as the No. 10-seed Buccaneers dominated No. 7-seed Mohawk at both ends of the floor en route to a 54-37 victory in the first round of the WPIAL Class AA playoffs.
Chartiers-Houston advances to Friday’s quarterfinals, where they will take on Burrell, a 60-19 winner over Freedom.
“It’s always scary in a big game when you start that many young kids,” said C-H head coach Laura Montecalvo. “But I thought we were prepared and my kids really performed tonight. It’s a huge credit to them.”
Chartiers-Houston (16-7) came out with a simple plan: get the ball down low and let Williamson and Youngblood go to work.
And that’s what they did.
The two freshmen combined to make all 11 Chartiers-Houston’s first half field goals and scored 23 of the Bucs’ 27 first half points as Chartiers-Houston built a 27-18 halftime lead.
The Bucs began the game with a 10-2 run implementing their strategy.
“Williamson is just so tough,” said Mohawk (16-6) head coach Mike O’Lare. “They didn’t throw anything at us that we weren’t prepared for, but when she was on the floor, she changes the game at both ends. I can’t believe she is a freshman.”
After taking a 14-5 lead after one quarter, Chartiers-Houston continued the play in the second, extending the lead to as many as 18 at 23-5 as every C-H field goal came in the paint.
But the early success came with a price.
Williamson picked up her third foul midway through the second quarter and with her on the bench, the Warriors cut the lead to 23-14.
Montecalvo made the decision to put Williamson back into the game and she quickly picked up her fourth foul, sending her back to the bench.
Mohawk pieced together a 13-2 run over that span and cut the C-H lead to seven, 25-18.
Chartiers-Houston survived the third quarter with Williamson on the bench and extended the lead to 18 at 41-23.
A large part of that was because of senior Jalynn Myers, who scored eight of her 14 points in the third quarter.
“It was a tough decision,” said Montecalvo. “After the fourth foul, we knew we would have to survive the third quarter without her. It’s a huge credit to the rest of my team to pick up the slack and extend the lead. If you would have told me Alexa would have four fouls in the first half, I would have told you we were in trouble. Jalynn really picked us up there in the third quarter.”
While C-H dominated in the middle on offense, the victory also came as a result of a big effort on defense.
The Bucs’ zone defense would have made Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim proud as C-H forced 24 turnovers and finished with a 40-23 rebounding edge.
Chartiers-Houston was so aggressive closing out on the ball that often it looked like Mohawk was playing five-on-seven instead of five-on-five.
“We have really been working on our zone and our rotations,” said Montecalvo. “The kids are finally buying into team defense. When one person slipped up, someone was there to help recover. Those are the things that great teams do. As for the rebounding, I told them that was expected of them. Their job was to grab every single rebound. Rebounding is heart and effort, and we showed both of those things tonight.”
Mohawk was led in scoring by Aliya Gage with 11 points.
To build off such a dominating performance, Montecalvo knows that her team will need a repeat performance on Friday night.
“I’m very proud of my kids,” said Montecalvo. “Let’s enjoy this one and get ready for Friday.”