Six West Hills area boys and girls basketball teams are set to open play in the PIAA Tournament, with three teams seeing action Friday night and three more entering the fray Saturday.
Six boys and two girls from West Hills area schools qualified for the PIAA Wrestling Championships March 6-8 by virtue of their performances at various regional tournaments that concluded Saturday. Two girls -- Kristen Walzer of Montour and Haley Smarsh of Moon -- both came home with gold medals.
Two West Hills area competitors -- Moon Area's Madison Puthoff and Cornell's Noah Pickett each collected a pair of two-five individual finishes at the WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championships, which concluded Friday at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Montour boys basketball team rebounded from Tuesday's loss to Chartiers Valley to beat Mars in the WPIAL Class 5A third-place game Thursday night. In Class 3A play, Bishop Canevin lost to Mohawk, 70-64, in the battle for third place.
The Montour Spartans' dreams of claiming a WPIAL Class 5A boys basketball tournament championship came to an end Tuesday night with a 47-44 semifinal loss to Chartiers Valley. Bishop Canevin's boys also lost in the semifinals to Aliquippa while OLSH's girls prevailed in a third-place game over Ellwood City.
Eight West Hills area wrestlers -- four from Moon Area, three from Carlynton and one from Montour -- placed among the top seven in their weight classes at the WPIAL Tournament. All seven will advance to regional action Feb. 28-March 1.
Both the Montour and Bishop Canevin boys basketball teams kept their WPIAL title hopes alive with victories in the tournament quarterfinals Friday night. Montour beat Latrobe, 60-52, and the Crusaders topped Keystone Oaks, 67-58.