Thirteen area basketball teams gearing up for postseason
The fields are set. Now the countdown until Tuesday begins. There will be 13 area teams in the high school basketball playoffs – seven boys and six girls – and who, when and where they’ll all be playing will be determined by the WPIAL pairings committee, which will reveal its postseason brackets on Tuesday.
The California boys and Southmoreland girls will likely draw the highest seeds among local teams.
Coach Phil Pergola’s Trojans (21-2) have been ranked in the top three in Class A most of the year, while coach Brian Pritts’ Lady Scotties (21-2) are tied with three other teams for the best record in Class AAA.
Those two teams won section championships, as did the Geibel Catholic girls (16-6). Where the Lady Gators end up in the seedings is a mystery, though. They should find themselves in the top half of the Class A bracket, but where they’ll actually be slotted is tough to gauge with six other teams sporting better or the same record.
The other boys teams entering the postseason are Albert Gallatin (18-6) in Class AAAA, Uniontown (14-9) and Laurel Highlands (12-11) in Class AAA, and Carmichaels (12-10), Geibel Catholic (8-11) and Mapletown (7-15) in Class A.
The Colonials should garner a seed in the top half of the Class AAAA bracket, but the only other team with a chance for such a placement are the Red Raiders in Class AAA.
The Mustangs’ victory over Uniontown on Friday could bump them up a spot or two as it assured LH of having no worse than a .500 record and moved them from fourth place to a tie for third with Yough in the final Section 3-AAA standings.
“I realized how important the game was, past the fact that it was our Uniontown, obviously our biggest rival,” Laurel Highlands coach Rick Hauger said. “But it was important for us was we didn’t want our kids focusing on anything but Uniontown.
“Obviously, with our record, we’re not going to get a high seed and I’m not saying we deserve one, but beating Uniontown may have helped us move up a little bit. I guess we’ll see on Tuesday.”
Although the Mikes are just two games over .500, there are five other teams with losing records in the 17-team Class A field, including the Gators and Maples, and three other teams with similar records. That makes it hard to guess where Carmichaels will end up in the seedings.
Two teams will be involved in a preliminary round game, and one of those almost certainly will be Mapletown.
The Maples, however, are a great story just to have qualified for the postseason as they didn’t have a head coach lined up until the school district hired Adam Checton just as the season began.
The four other girls playoff teams, all in Class A, are Mapletown (15-7), Jefferson-Morgan (12-10), Carmichaels (13-11) and Beth-Center (12-11).
Coach Linda Shultz’ Lady Maples are the only one in that group with an outside shot at cracking the top eight spots.
While the Lady Mikes, Lady Rockets and Lady Bulldogs don’t have outstanding records, there are four squads in the 16-team field with non-winning marks, so figuring out where the committee will place that trio is another difficult question.
Geibel Catholic, Carmichaels and Mapletown have the distinction of being the only local schools to put both their boys and girls basketball teams in the postseason.