Feb 11, 2020 4 min read

GREEN TREE – The West Greene girls basketball team and coach Jordan Watson are done with just making it to the Petersen Events Center.

The Pioneers have gone to the WPIAL Class A championship game each of the past two seasons, both district playoff runs ending in heartbreak. Winchester Thurston was too much for West Greene two years ago. Rochester came back and edged the Pioneers last season after being down 12 points at halftime.

A run at a third consecutive title appearance for unbeaten West Greene will start later than most teams. The Pioneers were one of two local girls basketball teams – the other being Trinity in Class 5A – to earn first-round byes when the WPIAL released the high school playoff brackets at its annual pairings meeting Tuesday night at the DoubleTree Hotel.

Unbeaten West Greene (22-0) is the second seed behind top-seeded and one-loss Rochester in Class A. Trinity (17-4), making its seventh straight appearance postseason, is the No. 3 seed in a deep Class 5A field. Games for the seven other girls basketball teams that advanced to the postseason begin as early as Friday.

“You can’t do better than winning them all,” Watson said. “When you do that, you let the chips fall where they may.”

West Greene finished the first undefeated regular season in program history. It is believed to be the first basketball team, either boys or girls, in Greene County to accomplish that feat.

Finishing unbeaten, at least up until this point, was never the goal for Watson. The Pioneers played eight non-section games against teams in higher classifications, including wins over Class 2A playoff teams Bishop Canevin and the Ellis School. The Pioneers also have quality wins over Sewickley Academy and West Virginia’s Wheeling Central Catholic.

“Our goal was to challenge ourselves with a tough nonconference schedule,” Watson said. “The biggest things those games help with are you have to play more possession-type basketball. There is more pressure and more situational basketball. You don’t get that when you are winning by 40.”

West Greene’s average margin of victory in its 22 wins is 33.7 points. Not bad for a team that had to replace three 1,000-point scorers – McKenna Lampe, Madison Lampe and Kaitlyn Rizor – who were lost to graduation.

“It’s been two factors – the ability to get and make shots from the foul line and role players have stepped up when they’ve had to,” Watson said. “Obviously, you are going to play someone good when you get (to the championship). On paper, those teams might have the top-end talent and girls who are going to play big-time college basketball. Our top six has to play better than their top six.”

Trinity, which had to replace one starter and its head coach from last season, was the second-highest scoring team in Class 5A at 64 points per game.

“I think it’s the personnel,” coach Kathy McConnell-Miller said. “We have the type of players that like to run and score in transition, creating a lot through their defense.”

The four losses for the Hillers were to unbeaten Chartiers Valley (twice), Blackhawk in the Hillers’ tip-off tournament and Thomas Jefferson. Those three teams have a combined nine losses.

“I loved our schedule,” McConnell-Miller said. “Our nonconference schedule helped us prepare for our section. In our section, all of the teams are battle-tested. When you have to play Chartiers Valley, Thomas Jefferson and Moon twice, it makes you get ready and get ready quick.”

A win for Trinity in the quarterfinals would automatically put it into the PIAA playoffs for the seventh straight season.

For a complete list of girls basketball playoff games, see the Scoreboard section.