St. Ledger’s layup lifts South Fayette over Franklin Regional
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Connor Mislan, left, congratulates Kade St. Ledger after his basket lifted South Fayette to victory, 48-46, over Franklin Regional in the first round of the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs.
Eleanor Bailey/ The Almanac
Connor Mislan battles a Franklin Regional player for the loose ball during WPIAL Class 5A basketball playoff action.
Eleanor Bailey
Dom Thomas looks to get rid of the basketball but is heavily pressured by Franklin Regional defenders
Eleanor Bailey
Joe Alcorn soars to the bucket to pull South Fayette within one points before the Lions pulled off a dramatic, 48-46 win against Franklin Regional.
Eleanor Bailey
Drew Franklin (5) makes Caden Smith (3) leave his feet on a head fake before putting up the shot during South Fayette’s 48-46 victory against Franklin Regional.
Eleanor Bailey
Kade St. Ledger soars to the basket for two. The junior scored the decisive hoop in South Fayette’s 48-46 victory against Franklin Regional in the first round of the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs.
McMURRAY – It was a 32-minute game of cat and mouse.
For a majority of those 32 minutes, the king of the jungle was doing all the chasing … until the very end.
Rolling off a backside screen to the low block, Kade St. Ledger made the game-winning layup with less than four seconds left as sixth-seeded South Fayette finally landed its big paw on No. 11 seed Franklin Regional for a 48-46 win in a WPIAL Class 5A first-round game Monday night at Peters Township High School.
“We knew we were going to get our chance, it was just about taking advantage of it,” South Fayette coach Dave Mislan said. “We knew we were in for a war, but we outlasted them. We made the last play. That’s the bottom line.”
South Fayette (16-7) will now get a chance at upending third-seeded Mars (17-5) in a quarterfinal game Friday. The site and time of that game has yet to be determined.
Franklin Regional (11-12) nearly squeezed its way out of the last-second jam. Caden Smith made a half-court heave immediately following St. Ledger’s basket but Panthers coach Steve Scorpion called a timeout prior to the shot. Franklin Regional inbounded the ball with 3.7 seconds left but was then called for traveling – its 16th turnover of the night – and failed to get a shot.
“I thought we controlled the second half, the entire game,” Scorpion said. “We had multiple opportunities to go up six or seven (points). We missed a couple wide-open layups. We got a couple of stops and would turn the ball over. Sixteen turnovers is a ton.”
The Lions were able to keep Franklin Regional within arm’s length the entire game, despite the Panthers making their first four shots and five consecutive shots to start the second quarter.
Outside of the first quarter, the only time South Fayette took control was when it started hot to open the second half. The Lions made three of their first four shots, including a fast-break layup by Brandon Jakiela to take a 36-30 lead with 5:47 left in the third quarter.
Jakiela was one of three Lions to finish with 11 points. Connor Mislan and Joe Alcorn also scored 11.
The third-quarter lead built by the Lions quickly faded as Franklin Regional ended the quarter on a seven-point run to retake a one-point, 40-39, lead entering the fourth.
Franklin Regional led by five points four times in the first half. The Panthers’ lead grew to as many as seven when Luke Kimmich scored on a layup to take a 27-20 advantage with 2:20 left in the first half.
Kimmich was one of two players for Franklin Regional to score 13 points. Logan Summerhill also finished with 13, 11 coming in the first half. Summerhill also had seven rebounds.
The Lions trimmed that deficit to one point, 29-28, entering halftime. St. Ledger made a baseline three-pointer with 1:35 left. Jakiela then found Drew Franklin for a backdoor, alley-oop layup with two seconds remaining in the half to finish an 8-2 run.
“We just had a lot of missed opportunities that we couldn’t put them away,” Scorpion said. “We let them hang around. They kept hanging around long enough to make the layup to win.”
Another close game was no stranger to South Fayette, which had played in seven one-possession games throughout the regular season. St. Ledger’s game-winning layup in the waning seconds improved the Lions’ record to 5-3 in those games.
“In the fourth quarter all I said was, ‘Hey, this is what we do every night,'” Dave Mislan joked. “It shouldn’t be anything to be surprised about.
“I’m old, so I’ve coached a lot,” Mislan continued. “These guys mean a lot to one another. They expect to win. That’s what it takes to get over the hump.”