Feb 17, 2023 3 min read

BURGETTSTOWN – For the second year in a row, Burgettstown rolled through its first-round WPIAL girls’ basketball playoff matchup.

But this year’s 56-40 win over Winchester Thurston felt different than last year’s win over California.

When Burgettstown beat Cal last year 65-22, it was the first time the Blue Devils had won a playoff game since 1993.

Almost a year later, the novelty is gone, and coach Megan Zitner and her program expect playoff wins.

But make no mistake: it still feels good to win in the playoffs.

“It is a little bit different,” Zitner said. “Not that it’s not exciting; believe me, it is. But I guess we more expected it this year. It was almost like this is something we needed to do, whereas last year, we were hoping to do it for the first time in how many years? So we’re just as happy, but yeah, it is a little bit different.”

Kaitlyn Nease led fifth-seeded Burgettstown with 20 points, Jill Frazier added 14 on four 3-pointers and Burgettstown cruised to a comfortable win over No. 12 Winchester Thurston.

Winchester Thurston (10-12) didn’t score its first field goal for well over six minutes, and Burgettstown (18-5) had a comfortable 14-3 lead after the first quarter. Burgettstown kept control in the second quarter, building a 29-8 halftime lead.

“I was happy with the first half,” said Zitner. “I mean, we held them to eight points or nine points or whatever. You can’t really ask for more than that. I was hoping to score more points. We didn’t score as much as we wanted, but certainly, on the defensive end, we did great.”

Zitner wasn’t as happy with the second half and feels her team should have won by more than 16.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “We didn’t handle the ball very well in the second half. We got into foul trouble… yeah, we have to handle pressure better, that’s for sure.”

Nease credited Winchester Thurston’s defense for making life harder on Burgettstown in the second half than in the first.

“I think the first half, we were more open,” Nease said. “We were shooting the ball and moving around more. But I think in the second half, they were more up on us and more aggressive, and that kind of slowed us down a little bit and made us turn the ball over.”

Winchester Thurston’s Sky Still was the game’s high-scorer with 21 points.

Burgettstown finished the regular season as section champions, going 10-0 in conference play to edge out Brentwood by a pair of games in Class 2A Section 2. Its next playoff game will be much more difficult.

Burgettstown’s will play Wednesday against No. 4 Greensburg Central Catholic. The time and place for that game have yet to be determined. The Burgettstown lost to Serra Catholic in the quarterfinals last season.

For Nease, winning playoff games keep getting sweeter if Burgettstown can make it happen more often.

“It still feels good,” she said. “But it’s just going to keep getting better.”