West Greene gets first playoff win since 1991
By Joe Tuscano
For the Observer-Reporter
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
ROGERSVILLE – It was a rough-and-tumble 32 minutes of high school boys basketball, just what the doctor ordered for the West Greene Pioneers.
West Greene, built more for speed and quickness, ran into an Avella team that doesn’t mind throwing its bulk around.
But the Pioneers showed it can handle the big and fast as well as the thick and crusty by taking a 58-47 victory from Avella in a WPIAL Class A first-round playoff game Friday night.
The win propels the eighth-seeded Pioneers to the quarterfinals of the WPIAL playoffs.
West Greene, now 16-7 as the eighth seed in the bracket, moves on to face top-seeded Imani Christian, which is 12-10 but finished the season with a 10-0 record in Section 3 of Class A, Wednesday at a site and time to be determined. Avella’s season ended with a 9-14 record.
This was the first playoff victory for West Greene since 1991, when the Pioneers knocked off Avella.
“The first quarter was really, really important,” said West Greene head coach Jim Romanus. “To jump on them like that, Our kids did an outstanding job, especially on their two best players, (Westley) Burchianti and (Bryce) Wright.”
Burchianti was held to only three points in the first half and finished with 14 points, six in the fourth quarter. Wright finished with 11 and Nate Cilla had a team-high 15.
“I was really proud of our effort,” said Romanus.
West Greene’s Parker Burns doubled his per game average by scoring 20 points.
“He stepped up tonight big time.” Romanus said. “We have three captains. Lane Allison is our offensive threat. Patrick Durbin is our defensive specialist. And Parker Burns is our floor general. He stabilizes everything out there. He makes sure everyone is in the right spot. I’ve got really really good kids. The three started nine games as freshmen and every game last year. So even though they are juniors, they have a lot of experience.”
West Greene’s defense was strong in the first half, holding Avella scoreless in the first quarter and allowing just 17 in the second quarter. Burns had a good first half, scoring 10 of West Greene’s 25 points.
“We’ve had some bad starts the first three, four, five minutes but we’ve never been shut out in the first quarter,” said Avella head coach Mike Macik. “We tried to make it up the rest of the game and that made it tough. We missed a lot of easy shots in the first quarter. Then we started to make some shots.”
A 7-0 run to start the third quarter gave West Greene a 32-18 lead.
“We score points,” Macik said. “It got better as the game went on. We just fell short. Our goal was to be a playoff team and win a game. That didn’t happen.”