by Malik Vincent
The City League girls champs Allderdice, along with the Westinghouse girls fell short in the PIAA state championship tourney last week.
There wasn’t a fault in Allderdice’s senior girls’ leadership in their PIAA AAAA state playoff game.
According to Coach Dave Walcheskey, they just couldn’t score to their potential.
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| BALDWIN ADVANCES—Baldwin’s Taylor Wentzel drives upcourt against DaJai Beasley of Allderdice. Wentzel scored 12 points in Baldwin’s 57-45 win over Allderdice in the PIAA Class AAAA playoffs.
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“We couldn’t put the ball in the hoop like we know we could,” he said. “It was a real bad shooting night for us.”
In their last games as Dragons, Lanise Saunders and Janay Bottoms led their team with 15 and 10 points, respectively, in the 57-45 defeat suffered to Baldwin on March 9 at Langley.
The Highlanders had a trio of double-digit scorers to represent the WPIAL’s class AAAA, section 4 that has Mt. Lebanon who owns this year’s conference title and three on the State level.
Baldwin (19-7) was the section’s runner up.
“We came in confident that we had what it took to win against one of the best teams in the WPIAL,” Walcheskey said. “We fell just short.”
Last, year, Allderdice lost to the Blue Devils in the first round of the State playoffs, 77-22. Walcheskey believes it’s these team’s lack of depth that causes them to be eliminated so early.
“At any given time, these teams have 10 to 12 valid options to put on the floor,” Walcheskey said about WPIAL depth. “Our numbers are much fewer. Our girls get tired. And that definitely plays a major role in these games.”
Chartiers Valley 64, Westinghouse 31
The city’s AAA representative Westinghouse lost to Chartiers Valley 64-31 the PIAA playoffs, on March 10 at Peabody.
Westinghouse (19-6) was led by sophomore guard Kayla Key’s 9 points, as the city’s AAA representative in the PIAA playoffs, March 10 at Peabody.
Key had to step in for starting point guard Roishay Woods, who was injured in the city title game against Allderdice.
“There were several attempts this week to get Roishay back for this game,” Westinghouse coach Phyllis Jones said.
“It was determined that she had a deep bruise in the knee and was not going to be prepared to participate in the state game. But, Kayla stepped in and played a great game for us.”
Led by Alexa Golden’s 14 points, Chartiers Valley (23-3) had two others that finished in double-figures.
The Lady Bulldogs were missing the team’s leading rebounder, Brittany Jackson, who also went down to injury. Jones said she has averaged around 7 boards per contest.
“This year, in addition to the injuries, the long turnaround between the city championship and the state first-round game played a major role in how we played,” Jones said.
(Malik Vincent can be reached at mvincent@newpittsburghcourier.com and on Twitter @malikvincent.)
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