Feb 9, 2026 By Rob Burchianti 4 min read

When the high school basketball section season wrapped up on Saturday there were 15 area teams that had punched their ticket into the WPIAL playoffs.

Of that group, 10 came from just five schools.

Laurel Highlands, Belle Vernon, West Greene, Waynesburg Central and Beth-Center will each be sending their boys and girls teams into the postseason.

Other local teams who have qualified for the playoffs are boys section champions Jefferson-Morgan (Section 3-2A, tied with Chartiers-Houston) and Southmoreland (Section 4-3A), girls section champion Geibel Catholic (Section 2-A, tied with Serra Catholic) and the Mount Pleasant and California girls.

Among the schools with two representatives is another first-place team in Section 3-4A girls champion Belle Vernon which is 19-3 overall and 13-1 in section play. The Belle Vernon boys tied for second place in Section 3-4A.

The school with the most unlikely duo to have earned a spot into the dance is Laurel Highlands.

The Lady Mustangs were coming off two consecutive seasons where they made playoff runs but had only one returning starter in Taylor Schwertfeger. Even so, first-year coach Rick Hill still managed to guide the team back into the postseason again.

“People were questioning how we could do that with such an inexperienced roster – we have 14 freshmen – I said well we’re going to work hard and improve every game, and that’s what they’ve done,” Hill said after his squad clinched a playoff spot with a win over Yough on Thursday.

On the boys side, the Mustangs were a combined 7-36 the previous two seasons as coach John Smith stepped in for the retired Rick Hauger and took on a rebuilding job after the graduation of two LH all-time greats in Rodney Gallagher and Keondre DeShields.

“We came off quite a high for years and we’ve been a little bit down, kind of expectedly, the last couple seasons,” Smith said. “It’s really nice to have the team this competitive and battling for a playoff spot again. I’m blessed to be a part of it.”

Smith refused to take sole responsibility for the dramatic turnaround in guiding the Mustangs to a 13-8 overall record and a 7-7 mark in Section 1-5A, spreading credit to his players and coaching staff.

“I get teased, people tell me you have the biggest staff in the WPIAL but I believe we have the right guys,” Smith said. “Paul Eckert comes on and he’s kind of like my administrator and keeps things in check. Dr. (John) Krizner, we refer to him as the Zen master, he’s like Phil Jackson. Then Cole Novotney came on this year with my son Timmy in helping with the junior varsity team, and those are young guys who give us good energy at practice. Robert Tajc came on, helping this year. He’s a big energy guy also and the kids absolutely love him.

“Then obviously Coach Hauger. He doesn’t come down and sit on the bench any more, he likes to lay back in the shadows, but I can tell you this, he’s at about 97 percent of the practices. We all work together for a common goal, and that’s for the kids to represent the district and their families and themselves as respectable young men, and I think we’ve done that. When you do those things and play the game the right way, good things happen.”

Waynesburg Central’s freshmen-infused girls team was expected to do big things but the Lady Raiders were even better than advertised with an impressive 19-2 overall record and a 10-2 mark in Section 3-3A that put them solidly in second place. They handed first-place Seton LaSalle its lone section loss of the season.

Waynesburg’s boys team finished fourth in Section 4-3A to make the postseason for the second year in a row.

West Greene’s girls team is in the playoffs for the 10th year in a row with the last two coming under coach Ben Brudnock. The Lady Pioneers wound up in third place behind Geibel and Serra Catholic. They were 10-4 in the section and sit at 15-6 overall.

The Pioneers grabbed the fifth and final spot in Section 3-2A boys standings.

Beth-Center’s teams are both led by players who recently joined the 1,000-point club in Jason Zellie and Violet Trump. The Bulldogs were fourth, two games ahead of West Greene, in Section 3-2A while the Lady Bulldogs placed third in Section 3-2A.

All 15 teams were waiting for the WPIAL pairings to be released later on Monday.