One year after suffering a heartbreaking loss in the WPIAL Class 2A championship, Neshannock girls basketball had a singular goal entering the 2025-26 season: win the gold.
And after storming through the playoff bracket as the No. 1 seed, the Lancers defeated Winchester Thurston, 60-51, at the Petersen Events Center on Saturday for their fourth WPIAL title in the last eight years.
“One year in the waiting,” Lancers coach Luann Grybowski said. “Last year wasn’t the result we wanted; this year was.”
Saturday’s title was the seventh of Grybowski’s career.
“This group is really special to me,” she said of the sentimental value of this year’s championship.
“These guys really put in the work this year. I mean, they went from spring all the way through the time we started. And they went two to three days a week. … But, you know, I have to give Steve Antuono kudos because he really put them through a great fall workout down at Reign (3D Training Academy), and it really helped us as a team, and it helped these guys develop. And everybody went, nobody missed.”
Senior Payton Newman led Neshannock (24-3) to its first WPIAL championship since 2022 with 24 points and 11 rebounds. For her and the other seniors, Saturday’s win was something they had been working toward their whole career.
“It means a lot,” Newman said. “We’ve been working for (a championship) since our freshman year, and obviously, we didn’t want to come back with silver again. We knew how it felt last year.”
Added senior Nina Medure: “This feels really good. This is literally what we wanted since last year.”
Said senior Jaidon Nogay: “We’ve been working hard trying to get here. They (Winchester Thurston) were definitely one of the better teams we’ve seen in a long time. And I’m just glad we could pull through at the end.”
In the first quarter, Newman and Jasmine Hollins powered their respective sides on offense. Newman had 12 of the Lancers’ 17 points, while Hollins had 10 of the Bears’ 17. Neither team shot well from the field, going a combined 14 for 37 after the first eight minutes.
In the second quarter, Winchester Thurston (21-4) was able to build some separation after a 10-5 run from the 6:36 mark to the 2:24 mark. Hollins and DaShae Cochran each scored four points during that stretch, and the Bears’ defense held the Lancers to 1-for-9 shooting.
Offensive struggles plagued Neshannock in the first half. Outside of Newman (19 points, 9 of 15 shooting), the Lancers scored 10 points, shot 2 for 19 and had nine turnovers.
Cochran (14 points) and Hollins (14 points) led Winchester Thurston to a 33-29 lead by the intermission.
“We were getting killed on the boards,” Grybowski said.
“(I told them) we have to take care of the basketball. … And the press, they were a little bit quicker than I anticipated, and they moved the ball really well. So in the second half, we had to go half-court trap and just try to contain the ball. … Our goal was to stop (Hollins) and (Cochran) and make somebody else be us.”
Those halftime adjustments by Grybowski led to the game-deciding third quarter.
Neshannock opened the period on an 8-0 run, which fueled its 18-5 scoring advantage. While the Lancers’ efficiency didn’t improve from the field (3 of 8), their 10-of-13 free throw shooting and defense were the difference makers in the quarter.
Neshannock held Winchester Thurston to 1-of-10 shooting and forced eight turnovers, taking a 47-38 lead into the fourth.
“Look, I thought the game was very physical,” Grybowski said, “but they let it go both ways early on.
“I mean, there were a lot of fouls, and everybody was getting fouled, and they called some and didn’t call others. If they called all the fouls, I mean, we would’ve had people foul out, and they would’ve had people foul out in the first half rather than the second half. I mean, that’s how aggressive the defense was. So kudos to them. The refs, I thought, called a good game, and we knocked down our free throws.”
The Bears trimmed their deficit down to three points (50-47), but Sophia Bonner found Madalyn Arrow out of a pick-and-roll to spark the closing run of the game.
Bonner, who had nine points in the third quarter, scored 13 for the Lancers.
Cochran led Winchester Thurston with 20 points, 16 rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. Hollins, who fouled out in the fourth, finished with 18 points.
“We played incredibly well,” Winchester Thurston coach Brandi Baron said. “We were prepared. We were ready to go. Our players came up big. I mean, we gave it our all.”
The Lancers advance to the PIAA tournament to face the seventh-place finisher in WPIAL Class 2A on Friday. The Bears move on to play the District 5 runner-up.