PIAA basketball: North Catholic girls look better vs Harbor Creek to make 5th straight trip to quarterfinals
SHARON — For North Catholic girls basketball coach Molly Rottmann, her team’s effort in the first quarter Wednesday was a welcome sight, especially after the team had struggled early in a PIAA first-round win over Forest Hills just four days before.
In a second-round meeting with District 10 champion Harbor Creek at Sharon High School, the Trojanettes blitzed the Huskies with a 25-9 run in the first eight minutes.
Harbor Creek played much better over the final three quarters but never did catch up as North scored a 63-51 Class 4A victory that sends it to Saturday’s quarterfinal round against WPIAL runner-up Blackhawk. The Cougars topped Belle Vernon 55-41 Wednesday.
“We knew we couldn’t start out slow again,” North junior guard Lauren Reitz said. “It was a different mentality tonight, and our goal was to move the ball around and we did that very well early on. The scoring came from that.”
The Trojanettes (22-6) had five different players contribute to 10 made field goals in the first period, including three 3-pointers from Sam Weir, Maggie Tatar and Reitz. The team opened the game by making nine of its first 12 attempts from the floor.
For the game, North made eight shots from beyond the arc on 15 tries.
“We’re shooting between 35 and 37% from 3 this year,” Rottmann said. “Tonight’s performance was a product of sharing the ball and making the extra pass. When you get going downhill, it can be tough for an opponent to stop you.
“We wanted to take them (the Huskies) out of the game early if we could.”
And while Harbor Creek’s chances of winning were greatly reduced after the first quarter, the Huskies never folded. After turning the ball over seven times in the opening quarter, they did so just four times the rest of the game.
Still, they trailed 38-20 at halftime, and despite senior guard Arianna Denning’s game-high of 23 points, their second-half rally was futile.
Ten of her points came in the third quarter, and when she drove to the basket for two points with 1:14 left in the game, Harbor Creek’s deficit was still double digits at 61-51.
The Huskies (22-5) outscored North 31-25 in the second half.
“Everything we did well early, we struggled with later on, and that’s when things started to get clogged up for us,” said Reitz, who was one of four players to score in double figures for the Trojanettes with 11 points.
Junior Brady Wehner, who scored her 1,000th career point with a bucket in the second quarter, paced North with 14 points. Sam Weir added 13 with three treys and Harmony Jones sank 12.
North has now reached the state quarterfinals in five straight seasons.
HARBOR CREEK 51
Arianna Denning 10 3-4 23, Alexis Janke 1 2-2 5, Ella Thompson 1 3-4 5, Jocelyn Bissell 3 2-2 9, Delaney Eaglen 2 0-0 6 Carolina Surovick 1 0-0 3. Totals: 18 10-12 51.
NORTH CATHOLIC 63
Harmony Jones 6 0-2 12, Brady Wehner 6 0-0 14, Sam Weir 3 4-6 13, Maggie Tatar 3 1-2 9, Lauren Reitz 5 0-0 11, Kate Vislosky 0 2-2 2, Evangeline Offi 1 0-0 2, Finley O’Shea 0 0-0 0, Khristina Rushak 0 0-0 0. Totals: 24 7-12 63.
Harbor Creek 9 11 17 14 — 51
North Catholic 25 13 14 11 — 63
3-point goals: Harbor Creek 5 (Eaglen 2, Surovick, Bissell, Janke); North Catholic 8 (Weir 3, Tatar 2, Wehner 2, Reitz).
Saturday: North Catholic vs. Blackhawk, PIAA Class 4A quarterfinal, TBD
