Rob Travis doesn’t mince words when describing his first season as coach of the Bishop Canevin girls basketball team.
“Last year we struggled,” he said of the Crusaders squad that finished 8-15 overall and 2-4 in WPIAL Class 1A Section 1 action.
“We were really young. We had a brutal schedule and played bigger schools. That hurt us early on. But we went on a pretty good run at the end.”
Bishop Canevin won its first WPIAL playoff game last year, beating Mapletown 53-17 but fell to the eventual Class 1A runner-up Saint Joseph, in a quarterfinal game, 66-36. The Crusaders also won a PIAA play-in game but were eliminated with a loss in the second play-in matchup.
The 2024-25 edition of the Crusaders, which will open play Monday, Dec. 2, at home against Burgettstown, will still be plenty young, as just three seniors are listed on the 15-player roster. But a pair of seniors figure to help steady the ship when things get a little rocky in Natalie Kirsch and Alexis Summers.
The 5-foot-6 Kirsch, Travis said, is “everything you could ask for in a player. She plays both ends of the floor and she holds the other kids accountable. She gives you everything she has.”
Kirsch, Bishop Canevin’s captain and an All-WPIAL soccer player, plays both guard and forward, but Travis said he hopes to use her more as a guard this season.
Summers didn’t get significant minutes last year and will be starting for the first time this season. “I expect big things out of her defensively and with rebounding,” Travis said the 5-8 senior forward.
Two more weapons that figure to contribute are junior Isabella Sysak – the Crusaders’ leading scorer last year – and 5-7 sophomore Kya Cooley. The 5-2 Sysak plays point guard and, Travis said, “she does it all. Kya had a good freshman year and we expect her to get better and better.”
Vyla Tomachesky, a 5-2 junior guard, figures to be a starter and should provide a spark offensively, Travis said.
Travis also hopes to get minutes from 5-10 freshman Cashmere Hurd. “She’s very raw and needs a lot of work,” he said. “She’s not a starter but she might push to be a starter by the middle of the year because of her size. I don’t know how much she’ll help right off the bat.”
Bishop Canevin will move from the four-team Section 1 to Section 2, which has eight teams including Clairton and Serra Catholic, both of which are dropping down from Class 2A and figure to be strong, Travis said.
“I think we can compete with Clairton,” he said. “We’ll play good defense, but we might struggle offensively early on. Serra Catholic is the team to beat.”
Clairton is led by senior Iyanna Wade, who averaged 40 points per game last year.
“She’s fun to watch,” Travis said of Wade, who set a WPIAL single-game scoring record for girls basketball when she netted 65 points in a win over Steel Valley. “She’s about 5-1 and maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. But she’s tough as nails.”
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