JM girls draw No. 6 seed
Jefferson-Morgan and its 20-1 record drew the highest seed among the 11 area girls basketball teams in the WPIAL playoffs, but the Lady Rockets drew only a No. 6 seed, despite having the best record in the Class A girls bracket.
JM takes on Winchester Thurston (11-10) at noon Saturday at Trinity High School, according to pairings released by the WPIAL Tuesday night.
“I’m kind of disappointed in the seeding, but you still have to win,” said JM coach Chris Niemiec. “I don’t think there is any doubt that North Catholic and Vincentian are 1-2, nobody can argue that, but I thought we’d be no lower than No. 4. We’re at six, but we still have to play and we still have to win.”
Niemiec knows a little bit about Winchester Thurston, even before he watched film of them late last night.
“I knew they had some size,” he said, referring to 6-1 sophomore Ayanna Townsend. “We’re not overly tall, but we’re going to have to defend her. And their point guard is a senior named Sophie Burkholder, so they are more than a one-man team.”
If you are looking for trends in the girls brackets, how’s this one: four local teams are one win away from playing the top seeds in three brackets.
In Class AAA, Laurel Highlands (10-12) takes on a Ringgold (12-10) team it beat during the regular season. The playoff rematch is set for 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Baldwin, with the winner moving on to meet top-seeded South Fayette (18-3) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Peters Township.
In Class AA, Frazier (12-8) gets a rematch with Apollo-Ridge (11-11), a team the Lady Commodores eliminated last season. This year’s game will be a 6:30 p.m. Friday tip-off at Hempfield, with the winner meeting top-seeded Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (19-3) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Keystone Oaks.
In Class A, California (14-7) is off until next Wednesday, when the Lady Trojans take on Riverview (13-8) in a 6:30 p.m. tip-off at Gateway. Riverview beat Cal in the quarterfinals last year, but this year, the winner likely will get top-seeded Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic (20-2, going into Wednesday’s game against a 6-15 Aliquippa team).
Ringgold coach Erika McCarthy was happy to draw LH after watching her team lose a 64-55 game at LH early in the season. “It will be a good first-round playoff game,” she said. “I’m happy with that.”
LH coach Ken Riddell, obviously, doesn’t want to read too much into the first meeting, but he certainly would like the same result this time.
“There is some familiarity there,” he said. “Plus, we played pretty well, but they are a different team, we are a different team now than we were then.”
Actually, McCarthy isn’t exactly doing flips about how the Lady Rams have played lately. Ringgold lost its last game to Class A No. 3 seed Quigley.
“Right now we’re not really gelling as a team,” McCarthy said. “We had a lot of turnovers. We have to come ready to play Saturday and focus.”
The Fillies are somewhat new to this payoff thing, but Riddell likes his team.
“We didn’t really know what to expect going into this,” he said. “We’re excited to be there. I think we can match up against anybody.”
Neither team expects to scrimmage before Saturday’s game.
“With the weather, we didn’t even get to have a workout Tuesday,” Riddell said. “We will use the next three days to practice and work on Ringgold.”
Brownsville (19-3) drew a 9 seed in the Class AAA bracket and faces Chartiers Valley (14-8) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Trinity.
Lady Falcons coach Patty Columbia, though in her first year, talks like a veteran coach looking at the brackets.
“You have to beat every team to win,” Columbia said. “A lot of strange things happen in the playoffs. I don’t get caught up in the seeds.
“I’m satisfied. We don’t know a lot about Chartiers Valley, but I’ll be able to watch and see what they are all about.”
Columbia believes her team needs practice time, as well as a scrimmage. “Hopefully, we can do both,” she said.
Also in the Class AAA bracket, Mount Pleasant (15-7) takes on Hampton (17-5) at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Fox Chapel and Belle Vernon (9-13) takes on Central Valley (12-9) at 3 p.m. Saturday at Trinity.
Moving to the Class AA bracket, the Frazier-Apollo-Ridge game is a rematch from last season’s first round, but Lady Commodores coach Ken Poling doesn’t know what analogy to draw from that fact.
“We’re so different from last year,” he said. “We had three senior guards last year, but we’re youthful there now. We were faster last year, we’re more methodical now. Our records are very similar. I guess we’re similar, but different.”
He also knows Apollo-Ridge coach Jim Callipare better this time around.
“We got a chuckle out of it,” Poling said. “We beat them last year (56-53). They jumped out to a pretty good lead, 18-2, but we were winning by halftime. Then it was back and forth all the way to the end.”
Also in the Class AA bracket, Charleroi (15-7) takes on Freedom (8-14) at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Peters Township and Beth-Center (8-10) meets Shenango (13-9) at 5 p.m. Friday at Baldwin.
Also in the Class A bracket, West Greene (16-6) takes on Cornell (16-5) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Keystone Oaks.
The California-Riverview game is one that intrigues even Lady Trojans coach Chris Minerd.
“I think we kind of got the seed we deserved and, after looking at their record, I think Riverview ended up about where they should be,” Minerd said. “We lost some key match-ups during the season, so we kind of played our way into the nine seed. We didn’t take care of business during the season and that’s what happens when you don’t take care of business.”