The Our Lady of the Sacred Heart girls basketball team will have to wait until at least the second round of the WPIAL Class 3A Tournament to get challenged.
The Chargers, seeded No. 3, opened their tournament run Friday night by blitzing South Allegheny, 56-8, at Moon Area High School.
With the win, OLSH advances to take on No. 6 seed Avonworth Wednesday at a site and time to be determined. Avonworth beat No. 11 seed Beaver Falls, 67-35, in another first-round game Friday.
The Chargers, who improved to 20-3 overall with Friday night’s win, led 4-0 before South Allegheny cut the lead in half at 4-2 with 5 minutes, 33 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
Those would be the last points the Gladiators would score until they hit a 3-pointer with 1:50 to play in the third quarter.
By that time, OLSH had built a 44-2 lead and the contest was long settled.
The Chargers led 23-2 at the end of the first quarter and 37-2 at halftime. Claudia Ierullo, who led OLSH with 15 points, connected on 3-pointers at the end of both the first and second quarters.
OLSH coach Don Eckerle said Friday’s game gave some of his players “a chance to get their feet wet” for the first time in WPIAL tournament action.
“That was the important piece for us,” he said after the game.
He said that given the circumstances, he was pleased with the way his team played. “We didn’t play to the level of the competition, so from that standpoint it was positive,” he said. “Our offense had its hands tied somewhat, and I thought we operated very well within the constraints that we had in that particular game.”
Looking ahead to Wednesday’s matchup with Avonworth, Eckerle said the Chargers and Antelopes are hardly strangers, having competed in the same section for the last two seasons prior to this one.
“We know them – we have history with them in the past,” he said of Avonworth, which reached the WPIAL Tournament finals each of the last two seasons.
“It’s going to be challenging for us. They’re a well-coached team, and they have quite a few starters coming back from the run they made the last couple of years. It’s a matchup we’re looking forward to.”
Eckerle said two years ago, Avonworth defeated OLSH in both section matchups on the way to a WPIAL title, but the Chargers prevailed when the two teams met in the PIAA Tournament.
OLSH reached the western finals that year before losing. Last year, Avonworth beat OLSH rather handily in two section meetings.
Indiana 44, Moon 39
Jaedin Griggs scored 14 points and Maria Depner added 12, but it wasn’t enough as the host Indians bounced the Tigers from the Class 5A portion of WPIAL Tournament for the second year in a row.
Moon, the No. 10 seed, trailed just 11-9 after the opening quarter and took a two-point lead with 6 minutes, 44 seconds left in the first half. But the seventh-seeded Indians used an 11-2 run to close out the second quarter and build a 26-17 lead at halftime.
The Tigers matched Indiana point for point in the third quarter, thanks in part to six points from Griggs, and outscored Indiana 12-8 in the final quarter but could not pull out the victory.
Moon trailed 38-27 with about 6 minutes remaining, but the Tigers went on a run and a 3-pointer by Anya Schwartz with 40 seconds remaining brought Moon to within 41-39.
But the Indians, who had trouble all night from the free throw line, converted three of their final six free throws in the final 30 seconds to hold for the win.
Moon finished its season with a 12-8 overall record and went 7-5 in Section 3, good for third place.
Photos by Mike Longo Jr.
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