After a thriller last season that saw Oakland Catholic defeat Blackhawk with a basket in the final 10 seconds, the Eagles and Cougars met again Saturday for Class 4A’s WPIAL championship.
Oakland Catholic won its eighth WPIAL championship and second straight by knocking off previously unbeaten Blackhawk, 51-44.
The Eagles never trailed despite a big push in the third quarter.
In a first quarter where the Eagles shot 8 for 10 from the field, their press helped turn the sharp start offensively into a 12-2 lead early, then a 20-6 edge after eight minutes of play. Senior Josie Fontana, a Richmond commit, pulled down six rebounds and scored nine points in the stanza, while five Oakland Catholic players scored.
Senior Aubree Hupp scored four of Blackhawk’s six points in the first but was 1 for 6 from the floor for a team that shot 2 for 13 from the field in the first.
“We started out exactly how we thought we were going to start,” Oakland Catholic coach Henry Schechter said. “It got a little tighter than we would’ve preferred but, in the end, I’m just super proud we were able to pull together.”
The Cougars were playing without Mia Sheesley, who suffered a knee injury in the semifinals and will miss the rest of the season.
“When you lose a player like Mia, it’s hard to get acclimated to that game when you’re trying to bring somebody in new and you have different lineups and different people playing different positions,” Blackhawk coach Greg Huston said. “I think that definitely affected us in the first quarter. I was proud of way that we did get ourselves together as the game progressed.”
The second quarter was anything but like the first for the Eagles (21-2), but the defensive effort remained similar. Oakland Catholic shot just 3 for 11 but held Blackhawk to eight points to take a 26-14 lead to the locker room for the break.
Fontana finished the half on pace for a triple-double of the tough variety with 13 points, nine rebounds and five blocks.
After a tough first half, the third quarter became the Aubree Hupp Show. The Canisius recruit had seven points on 2-for-10 shooting in the first half but did have nine rebounds. By the end of the third quarter, Hupp had a double-double of her own to join Fontana in that department. The Cougars’ four-time WPIAL finalist had 15 points and 11 rebounds after three quarters.
Thanks to that production, steady effort around her and a big four-point play by senior Grace Huston that made it 31-30 with 2:27 left in the third, Blackhawk (22-1) made a game of it in the stanza and trailed 37-33 heading to the final quarter.
The Cougars had a few chances to tie or take the lead during that stretch and even into the fourth.
“That’s the psychological part of basketball. If you can grab the lead there, it changes the way they’re feeling about themselves and the way we’re feeling about ourselves,” Coach Huston said. “We had a nice run there and some momentum going but then a couple turnovers and missed shots or whatever it was. That certainly was a little bit deflating.”
Said Schechter: “It’s a high school girls basketball game, we’re going to make mistakes. It’s how you rebound.”
Oakland Catholic weathered the storm, however. With the lead cut again to 37-36 by a Hupp free throw, the Eagles used a 3-pointer by Savanna Daye and another by Zephaniah Troxler-Scott 37 seconds later to catapult back ahead with a 11-0 run before a Hupp layup stopped the scoring drought for the Cougars at 2:20.
“I just feel like we needed that and after that ‘let’s go on a run. Let’s get a stop now. Let’s guard our yard and keep running up the score,’” Troxler-Scott said. “Hard work paid off.”
Fontana finished with 20 points, 15 rebounds, six blocks, two assists and two steals, while Troxler-Scott contributed 12 points and five steals to the winning effort.
“Going into this I knew the defense would be the biggest part. I knew boxing out was going to be a big thing,” Fontana said. “I’m grateful that South Park and North Catholic had bigs that I could go against that prepared me for Aubree.”
Hupp scored 20 and grabbed 14 boards for the Cougars as the only Blackhawk player to reach double figures.
“I think we have great kids who work hard. We’ve got such a strong culture in the program,” Schechter said. “Today wasn’t perfect but every huddle the kids picked each other up. ”
The championship also pulled Oakland Catholic into a tie for third most in WPIAL history with three other teams, including Blackhawk.
The PIAA playoffs begin for both teams March 7. Oakland Catholic will play District 10’s fourth-place finisher Corry while Blackhawk will play D-10’s third-place team, Fairview.