Feb 11, 2005 By Mike Ciarochi 9 min read

Five high school basketball teams from the area open WPIAL playoff action tonight at three locations. The Laurel Highlands Fillies put their 10-14 record on the line against 11-11 Steel Valley in a girls Class AAA preliminary-round game at 6:30 p.m. at Norwin High School. Following that game, Waynesburg Central (13-11) will take on Valley (10-11) in a Class AAA boys preliminary game at 8 p.m.

A Frazier doubleheader will be held at South Fayette High School. Coach Les Martini’s 13-11 girls team will meet 17-7 Bishop Canevin in a Class AA preliminary game just before coach Larry Mikesell’s boys team puts its 11-13 record on the line against 7-15 Avella in a Class A preliminary.

Brownsville (13-10) takes on South Allegheny (14-10) in a Class AA girls preliminary game at 6:30 p.m. at Thomas Jefferson High School.

LH vs. Steel Valley

First-year Fillies coach Jerry Slampak took on his new job better prepared than most new coaches. He had been an assistant to Rick Hauger for a couple of years before Hauger moved over to the boys coaching job and Slampak was hired to coach the girls.

“It’s been exciting,” Slampak said. “I’ve enjoyed working with the girls. I was prepared for this job when I got it. I knew what would have to be done, plus I got a lot of help from our athletic director, Mark John. When things needed to be done, he helped me get them done.”

Slampak’s best offensive player has been senior Kayla Ashton, who averages about 18 points per game. Ashton and Slampak’s daughter, senior Sara Slampak, are the Fillies best defensive players. As for the match-up against Steel Valley, Slampak likes his team’s chances.

“They are tall and they’ve got a pretty good outside shooter, but I think we match-up well with them,” Slampak said. “They have used a lot of defenses in the films I’ve seen, so I don’t really know what to expect from them defensively, but I still think we’ll match-up pretty well.

“From watching the film, I think we can beat them. I have a good feeling. I expect a close game, but we can win.”

Waynesburg vs. Valley

Things were looking good for the Waynesburg Central boys team. They were in a battle for second place in Section 4-AAA before losing four of their last five games. The biggest blow, however, came in the last game, a 57-48 loss at McGuffey.

Worse than the loss, which brought Keystone Oaks into the tournament in a fourth-place tie with Waynesburg, an ankle injury suffered by Nate Stoner, Waynesburg’s leading scorer and rebounder, is likely to keep Stoner on the sidelines, next to his dad and coach Mark Stoner.

“It was tough,” Mark Stoner said. “The kids at first were a little shell-shocked. I’ll be honest with you, McGuffey doesn’t beat us if Nate doesn’t get hurt. We had the lead and he had scored seven points in the first quarter. You don’t just replace 18 points like that. It hurts, but we have got to move on.”

Stoner said Thursday that his son likely would not play. In the penultimate regular-season game, Nate Stoner recorded a triple-double with 27 points, 15 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in a two-point loss to Thomas Jefferson.

Stoner averages 18.4 points, 11 rebounds and almost four blocked shots per game.

Mark Stoner said he would compare Valley to Section 4 foe Elizabeth-Forward.

“They are a decent-sized team,” Mark Stoner said. “They have a 6-8 kid who is pretty good. They like to run a 1-2-2 defense and they press a lot. We’re familiar with that because we run it, too. And they like to run the floor.”

Stoner said he got to see Valley twice this season because the Vikings played in Waynesburg Central’s holiday tournament. A win over Valley would put the Raiders up against top-seeded Moon in a first-round game and Mark Stoner said Nate Stoner would likely return for that game.

Brownsville vs. South Allegheny

Everything seems to be coming together for the Brownsville girls basketball team, even though it has been far from a picture perfect regular season.

Coach Greg Golembiewski said his team had a lot to overcome even to get to the playoffs, but now that the Lady Falcons are in, anything can happen.

“We had one girl (Laranda Isaac) miss the holiday tournament,” Golembiewski said. “If we had her, I think we could have won both of those games. Bethany Seelye came down with mono and missed six weeks. Plus our schedule was pretty tough. We played nine games in a 12-day stretch and I think that affected some of our girls.”

All of that added up to a 13-10 record, but that’s twice as many losses and Golembiewski anticipated.

“I lost a few games I wouldn’t normally have lost,” Golembiewski said. “I figured we’d lose two to Fort Cherry, two to Washington and the Connellsville game.”

Nonetheless, the Lady Falcons pulled their season together with a few key late season wins.

“We won back-to-back games against Frazier and Charleroi that put us in the playoffs,” Golembiewski said. “And we’ve had good practices this week. I feel confident and the kids are excited.”

Brownsville’s best player is Julia Martini, who was described by her coach as “a big part of the reason we’re in the playoffs. She has really stepped it up this year. She’s our point guard and she averages a little over 15 points per game.”

Frazier vs. Canevin

Excitement, Les Martini said, is the watch word at Frazier these days.

As the coach of the playoff-bound girls basketball team, Martini should know.

“Everybody’s excited,” he said. “I keep getting phone calls and messages from former players and friends and just people from the area who are really excited about the success we’ve had this season.”

And the excitement is carrying over right into Henry DiVirgilio Fieldhouse.

“We had a practice last night,” Martini said. “It was probably the best practice we’ve ever had.”

Martini knows, however, that Bishop Canevin won’t roll over and play dead simply to keep a good thing going in Perryopolis.

“Both games we saw of theirs, they full-court pressed the whole game,” Martini said of Canevin. “We were at the Cal U camp and we played against them down there. They may not remember us, but we remember them. They are a very fundamentally sound team. I like the team. I like the way they play defense.”

Martini’s two best players, seniors Brooke Carson, who averages 10.5 points and 11 rebounds a game, and A.J. Morgan, who averages 8.5 rebounds and 8 points per game, are both volleyball players who are just learning that winning basketball games can be fun, too.

“Volleyball, that’s their sport and we realize that,” Martini said, referring to coach Mandy Hartman’s PIAA-qualifying volleyball team. “We want them to realize that they can win in basketball, too. I think it’s sinking in with them.”

The way Canevin plays defense, Martini expects the game to come down to outside shooting.

“I play three guards and we’re going to have to hit from outside in order to win,” he said.

Among the comments Martini has heard this week was one he plans to relay to his team.

“Someone told me that every tournament has a team that nobody expects to hear much from, that manages to come through,” Martini said. “That could be us.

“We haven’t been to the playoffs since 1980, but I told them ‘Let’s to something no Frazier team has ever done’ and that’s win a playoff game.”

Frazier vs. Avella

Frazier boys coach Larry Mikesell was a bit miffed at the WPIAL pairings meeting Tuesday night when he learned that his team was seeded last in the Class A boys bracket.

But he has moved past that and is focused on tonight’s preliminary match-up against Avella. He didn’t receive game films from Avella until Thursday, but he still feels confident in his team’s ability to win the game.

“If they did it right, we should be about even,” Mikesell said of the WPIAL seeding process. “From some of the scores I’ve seen, Avella has been competitive. They played Carmichaels pretty tough and a few of their other games were pretty close, so maybe their record (7-15) is a little deceiving.”

Mikesell said junior Will Bronson is probably his team’s leading scorer, but noted that Bronson has plenty of company when it comes to putting points on the board.

“Our first five or six players have been close to double figures in almost every game,” Mikesell said. “This is one of the better passing teams I’ve ever had. They are very unselfish and they are ready to play ball. We’ve had some very good practices this week.”

Mikesell said his team’s overall record may have dropped the Commodores to the bottom of the Class A bracket, but that he felt a lot of quality wins should have counted for something.

“We beat Monessen at Monessen and lost to them at home by one,” he said.

“We beat Clairton at home by one and lost there by one. We played a quality exhibition schedule. We’ve had some bad games, too, but we didn’t lose too many games by a large margin.”

If the Commodores get back Avella, they face a Tuesday match-up against top-seeded Duquesne.

“They are a nice team, a power team,” Mikesell said. “They beat Serra by five and Serra beat us by seven, so I think we would be competitive. You never know what might happen on any given night.”

But first things first.

Mikesell believes his team has the talent to beat Avella.

“I think we’ll be competitive,” he said.