South Fayette girls seek 4th WPIAL title in 5 years
As time was winding down on a comfortable victory against Peters Township Saturday, Juliette Leroux was on the bench beside her senior teammates Haylie Lamonde and Ryan Oldaker.
During that well-deserved break at the end of a 66-27 victory it hit her that she and her South Fayette teammates were heading to another WPIAL final.
“For some people it’s a once in a lifetime experience, so being there all four years is pretty incredible,” Leroux said. “It’s amazing how much time and effort our entire team puts in to get to WPIALs. It’s just really exciting to be going there again and I’m grateful to get to experience it four times.”
The top-seeded Lions (24-1) will look to leave as champions this time after losing in the final last year when they play No. 2 Thomas Jefferson (23-2) in the WPIAL Class 5A championship, 7 p.m. Friday at Petersen Events Center.
It’s the fifth season in a row that the Lions have made it to the WPIAL championship. The Jaguars are seeking their first WPIAL title.
South Fayette lost to Peters Township last year, which ended a bid for four district titles in a row. The Lions rebounded to win the state title.
They’d love to achieve a pair of gold medals this year.
Standing in their way is a Thomas Jefferson team that might lack some of the experience South Fayette has in WPIAL finals, but made the WPIAL semifinals last year and the state playoffs, where it took Peters Township to be brink in the second round before falling short.
“I wouldn’t call us an overwhelming favorite,” South Fayette coach Bryan Bennett said. “I think everyone else is calling us that. TJ is extremely talented. They played in the toughest section in Class 5A. That’s for sure. We’re going to have our hands full. We’re going to have to prepare like we do for everyone else.”
The Jaguars went undefeated in Class 5A Section 4. They feature a 2,000-point scorer in Maggie Spell.
Spell is a Campbell recruit. Allie Wilson, Emma Altavilla, Riley McCabe and Emily Hritz make up the rest of a starting lineup that all returned from last year. Standout junior guard Kaylee DeAngelo, a Robert Morris recruit, has missed the entire season with a knee injury.
South Fayette hasn’t played Thomas Jefferson in the last two years, but there is some familiarity between the teams.
“I’ve played with Riley McCabe and Allie (in AAU), so we know each other pretty well,” Leroux said. “We’ve scrimmaged them before, but that doesn’t mean much. By the end of the season every team grows.”
In getting their revenge against Peters Township for losing last year’s final, The Lions looked much like their usual dominating self after receiving a scare against Trinity in the quarterfinals.
South Fayette eked out a 26-23 win in one of their lowest scoring outputs in a long time.
“We know we didn’t play our best game, but a lot of the credit should go to Trinity on that,” Bennett said. “They did an outstanding job and we weren’t ready for it. We went back, looked at the film and saw some things that we could’ve done differently. If you look at our shooting percentages, we typically shoot 57 percent from two and 35 from three. We were around 11 for three and in the mid 20’s from two, so we didn’t shoot well.”
The Trinity game served as a wakeup call and the Lions answered Saturday, nearly matching their entire total against Trinity in the first quarter by scoring 21 points.
“We took smarter shots in this game,” Leroux said after the semifinal. “I felt a lot of our shots (against Trinity) were super rushed, especially from three. We didn’t shoot our best, so we worked hard in practice and came into (the semifinal) with a better mindset.”
The hope is to carry that mindset over and for the seniors, leave the Petersen Events Center with a third WPIAL gold medal.