Lady Mustangs edge Beaver, qualify for states
The Laurel Highlands girls basketball team had to regroup quickly.
The Lady Mustangs had suffered a 59-32 loss to top-seeded Blackhawk in Thursday’s WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinal playoff game and now their season was on the line with a consolation game at Beaver Saturday afternoon.
A win would secure a spot in the PIAA tournament but a loss would end LH’s season.
Miya Harris made sure it was the former.
After the Lady Bobcats rallied from a 13-point deficit to tie the game with 3.5 seconds left, the LH senior raced up court and tried to launch a potential game-winning shot but was fouled.
Harris went to the line with 0.7 seconds on the clock and dropped in two out of three free throws and Beaver could not get a final shot off as Laurel Highlands pulled out a 51-49 victory.
Aierra Jenkins scored a team-high 13 points, Harris and Taylor Schwertfeger followed with 11 points apiece, Ayrianna Sumpter added eight points and Taylor Irwin chipped in with six points for the eighth-seeded Lady Mustangs (18-6) who got two 3-pointers each from Schwertfeger and Irwin. Righteous Richardson accounted for LH’s other two points.
Laurel Highlands will next play at South Park in a PIAA placement game at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The win also guarantees the return of head coach Stewart Davis to the bench for the state playoffs. Davis was ejected late in the loss to Blackhawk and is serving a two-game suspension, which means he’ll miss the game at South Park also.
LH assistant coaches John Robinson, Ryan Schwertfeger and Mike Irwin ran the team Saturday in Davis’ absence with Schwertfeger serving as the acting head coach.
“Us as coaches, me and Mike and Coach Rob (Robinson), we’re just thrilled because now we guarantee to get Stu back for the PIAA playoffs,” Schwertfeger said. “The whole time we were saying let’s get this one for Coach Stu. That was our goal. Let’s win this game. Whatever happens. happens the next game because it’s a seeding game but we obviously needed this one to keep playing.”
Schwertfeger was pleased at the way LH bounced back from the loss to Blackhawk.
“Overall, I thought they responded well,” he said. “I thought we shared the ball well, we moved the ball, made them play defense on every possession. The scoring was pretty well spread out for us also.”
While he served as the head coach, Schwertfeger said the trio of assistants worked together.
“It was fully collaborative,” Schwertfeger said. “I coached middle school for about three years and coached all of these girls except for Miya at one point. So Stu thought it would be best if I stood up to be the head coach but it was a joint effort for sure. I bounced a lot of things off them during the game on what defenses they were in and what we should run, should we press, things like that.”
Laurel Highlands started well, jumping out to leads of 18-11 after one quarter and 32-20 at halftime.
The Lady Mustangs took their biggest lead of 13 points when Harris scored to make it 38-25 midway through the third quarter.
Beaver answered with an eight-point run to get within five but baskets by Sumpter and Jenkins, the latter with one second left, gave LH a 42-33 advantage after three quarters.
Schwertfeger lauded Jenkins who fouled out without scoring in the loss to Blackhawk.
“I thought she played really well,” Schwertfeger said. “Between her and Ayrianna, we dominated the boards as we should have. We were bigger and stronger underneath and we took advantage of that.”
The fifth-seeded Lady Bobcats (17-7) fought back in the fourth quarter and a 3-pointer by Annsley Baker cut Laurel Highlands’ lead to 46-44. After Sumpter and Jenkins each made one of two foul shots, Ava Wright drained an NBA-range 3-pointer to bring Beaver within one with 12 seconds remaining.
Harris was fouled and converted one of two with 11 seconds left to make it 49-47, but Baker was fouled with 3.5 seconds left and made both, the second after an LH timeout, to tie it.
“We did tell them if she does miss, get the rebound and just hold it, they’ll foul you and we’ll get free throws and that should end it,” Schwertfeger said of what they discussed during the timeout. “But we kind of assumed she would make it. Coach Mike is big on scenarios so I asked him, there’s 3.5 seconds left, this is a big scenario, what do you want to do?”
The trio settled on just getting the ball to Harris.
“Ayrianna threw it in to Miya and Miya’s good about getting it down the floor,” Schwertfeger said. “She covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time and got to a point where she had a legit look probably five or six feet behind the 3-point line but they fouled her.
“I’m always confident with Miya. She’s a high-IQ player and just a really good basketball player. Even if she didn’t get fouled she might’ve made that shot.”
As the officials huddled after the foul, which resulted in three free throws for Harris, Schwertfeger took advantage of the delay to talk to his players.
“The officials were trying to figure out how much time should be left on the clock so it was almost like a timeout,” Schwertfeger said. “We were able to talk to Miya. The biggest thing we were preaching was not about Miya, we were confident she was going to make at least one, but when they threw the ball in, we wanted to challenge but definitely didn’t want to foul.
“I asked the ref that at 0.7 they can catch and shoot right, and he confirmed. So between No. 10 (Baker) and No. 5 (Wright) we kind of wanted to challenge them without making any contact.”
Harris made the first and third free throws and Beaver couldn’t get a final shot off.
Wright scored a game-high 19 points and Baker followed with 17 for the Lady Bobcats.
“We didn’t do everything right but Beaver earned their way back into the game,” Schwertfeger said. “They made big shots. I didn’t feel like we made a bunch of mistakes to give them opportunities other than missing some free throws.”
Laurel Highlands was 11 of 23 from the foul line, including five of 11 in the fourth quarter.
Winning the game in regulation was key, according to Schwertfeger.
“I didn’t really want to go into overtime because they had the momentum and we had foul trouble,” he said. “They called one foul on Ayrianna when it should have gone on AJ (Jenkins) and it was Ayrianna’s fourth. Taylor (Schwertfeger) had four as well. So overtime wouldn’t have been ideal.”
Schwertfeger is confident Laurel Highlands can find success in the PIAA tournament again after winning the program’s first state game last year.
“We have the tools to do it,” Schwertfeger said. “We’ve just got to come together, continue to play defense like we have and knock down some shots.”