Winter sports primer: South Fayette girls set to defend state title
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Last year the South Fayette girls basketball team might have shocked some people when it took down four-time defending champion Archbishop Wood in the PIAA Class 5A title game.
The Lions won’t be sneaking up on anybody this year.
With what they’re returning, they seem as primed as any team could be to try and repeat as state champion.
Five returning players have Division I offers.
Seniors Juliette Leroux (Florida Atlantic), Ryan Oldaker (Marist) and Haylie Lamonde (USC Upstate) have already signed a letter of intent with their respective colleges.
Two juniors are also receiving plenty of college interest.
Ella Vierra has offers from Duquesne, Bucknell, Kent State, Robert Morris and Youngstown State and Lailah Wright holds offers from Le Moyne, Manhattan, Maryland-Baltimore County and Longwood.
The Lions have the ability to put five players with Division I offers on the floor at the same time, which not too many other teams in the state can boast.
It won’t be easy, because the Lions have a target on their back, but under the direction of coach Bryan Bennett, expect them to be playing into late March again.
Defending WPIAL champs
Even though South Fayette won a state title last year, it didn’t win WPIALs. That’s because Peters Township beat the Lions at the Petersen Events Center last season.
South Fayette got its revenge in the state semifinals, but the Indians return a strong core. They graduated two key players – multi-time Observer-Reporter player of the year Natalie Wetzel, who’s now playing at Miami (Fla.) and Daniella Radulovich – but have plenty of talent returning. Bri Morreale, Jordyn Welsh and Taylor McCullough are returning starters.
The Belle Vernon boys sent coach Joe Salvino into retirement with a storybook ending by winning the WPIAL Class 4A title against North Catholic.
The Leopards will look a lot different this year after the graduation of four of the five starters, including Observer-Reporter Player of the Year Zion Moore.
Other boys teams that made the state playoffs last year were Peters Township, which lost to Chartiers Valley in the WPIAL Class 5A championship, and Chartiers-Houston.
The Indians return Dylan Donovan, Jake Wetzel and Lucas Rost. Chartiers-Houston will have a much younger team after graduating four starters. Aaron Walsh is the lone returning starter.
On the girls side, Chartiers-Houston, Fort Cherry and Canon-McMillan qualified for states last season. Keep an eye on the Big Macs, who are looking to build on a historic season in which they won a state playoff game for the first time. They return their entire team, including Madison Clair (West Virginia Wesleyan), Lauren Borella (West Liberty) and Sam Miller (Washington & Jefferson).
New coaches
Some of the bigger schools in the area have new boys basketball coaches.
Glenn Gutierrez is the new coach at Canon-McMillan and brings a wealth of experience as a former college head coach at Washington & Jefferson as well as an assistant at Cal, Eastern Michigan, Robert Morris, Charleston Southern and Duquesne.
Gutierrez takes over for Charles Robinson.
Alec Ferrari has taken over at Trinity for Tim Tessmer. Ferrari was a former standout player at Chartiers-Houston.
Travis Anderson is the new coach at Wash High, replacing Ryan Bunting. Johnson has been a coach at the AAU level in the past.
Ricky Tyburski took over for the retired Salvino at Belle Vernon. Tyburski was a longtime assistant with Salvino.
On the mat
Two local wrestlers are back to defend their state championships.
Belle Vernon’s Elijah Brown won the 215-pound boys title, while Canon-McMillan’s Marlee Solomon took the 112-pound girls title.
Brown, a senior, recently flipped his college commitment from Pitt to Penn State.
Solomon, a junior, seems to be in prime form to make another run at state gold. She recently won at 117 pounds at the Missouri Valley Women’s College Open, where she defeated several college wrestlers and U17 World Champion Kaura Coles.
On her way home from the Missouri Valley, Solomon stopped at the Baldwin Wallace Women’s Open in Ohio and won there as well.
The McGuffey boys wrestling team finished third at WPIALs in Class 2A and qualified for states.
In the pool
Peters Township’s Ava Komoroski burst onto the scene as a sophomore winning the WPIAL Class 3A 100-meter swimming title. She finished at 51.58 and now will try to become a repeat champion.
Staff writer Jerin Steele can be reached at jsteele@observer-reporter.com