Rangers add reinforcements with hopes of continued success
Eugene Briggs thought the days of lacing up the sneakers – at least to play – was long gone.
Little did he know.
For the first several weeks of this season, the 65-year-old Fort Cherry boys basketball coach was still bending over to lace up his Nike AirMax shoes to make three-pointers and play lockdown defense.
“I have to show them how it’s done,” Briggs joked.
But with a sizable roster of 24 players – a solid number for only a Class 2A school in basketball – it wasn’t Briggs just trying to relive his glory days but simply helping to facilitate a practice. The roster went from sizable to stressed as the Fort Cherry football team’s magical season continued into the start of basketball season. The Rangers finished with an undefeated regular season and the school’s first WPIAL football championship. They advanced all the way to the state title game Dec. 7.
Fifteen of the 24 players on Briggs’ roster were members of the football team, leaving the Rangers with just nine basketball players for the first three weeks of the season.
“We played a lot of 3-on-3, just to get some kind of live action. Some of the younger coaches or I would sometimes have to step in, but that was for half-court work. Not a lot of full-court work going on there,” Briggs laughed.
But the calvary returned in the middle of December in hopes of continued success, not only from the football season but from what Briggs and the Rangers have built on the hardwood over the course of the last two seasons. Two years ago, Fort Cherry won a single-season school record 24 games and played in its first WPIAL championship since 1961. The Rangers lost to Our Lady of Sacred Heart in the district final, won a PIAA postseason game but fell to Portage in the state quarterfinals. Last season, they won 18 games in a row – 20 total – to earn the third seed in Class 2A. A night of poor shooting led to an upset loss to 14th-seeded Clairton, 53-46, in the first round of the WPIAL playoffs.
“We picked the wrong time to have a bad game,” Briggs said. “We shot 25 percent from the field. You don’t beat anybody when you do that. We thought we had a pretty good shot to get back to The Pete.”
The reinforcements from the football team included three starters for Briggs with senior Corey Bouchelle, junior Shane Cornali and sophomore Matt Sieg. Evan Rogers and Jonah Pfender also provide important minutes for Fort Cherry (2-0, 6-4), who also had to replace former Observer-Reporter Player of the Year Owen Norman.
The combination of those players, senior guard Derek Errett and Jack Kitzmiller look to provide a more balanced scoring attack for the Rangers. Errett, one of the few from the starting lineup that has been there all season, leads Fort Cherry with 18.1 points per game. He also averages more than five rebounds and assists.
Cornali quickly found his footing in the transition back to basketball, averaging 14.9 points and six rebounds in the games he’s played in thus far.
“I was ready to go,” Cornali said. “Shooting has been a little bit of an issue because we are still trying to get into a rhythm. It’s definitely easier that a lot of us are coming back together.”
The only losses for Fort Cherry have been to West Allegheny, Trinity, McGuffey and Saturday against Washington in the Chuckie Mahoney Classic at Burgettstown. Each of those four opponents are from higher classifications than the Rangers.
Fort Cherry gets into the heart of its Section 4 schedule Tuesday at home against Chartiers-Houston.
“You start a season and are building a team with those nine guys we started with,” Briggs explained. “Now, we are working on combining everybody and growing together. We have some great athletes that can just step on the floor and be athletes. We are excellent on defense. But we are still like three weeks behind most teams. Our shooting and timing are not there yet. Hopefully we continue to grow and get to where we need to be by the middle of January.”