Mar 6, 2015 4 min read

ERIE – Chartiers-Houston freshman forward Alexa Williamson pressed her palms against her face and shook her head late in the third quarter.

No matter how hard she worked or how many second chances she created with her ability to rebound, the shots were not falling. Williamson was using her 6-1 frame to box out Harbor Creek, but the rim was her worst enemy Friday night.

She responded in a way in which few freshman can.

Williamson scored nine of her team-high 20 points during a 20-3 fourth-quarter run as Chartiers-Houston defeated the Huskies, 56-51, in a PIAA Class AA first round playoff game at Mercyhurst Prep.

The state playoff win is believed to be the Bucs’ first in program history, and they advance to the second round to face Carlynton (20-6), a 45-33 winner over Redbank Valley, Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.

Williamson had just four points at halftime and was struggling to find her scoring touch under the basket. That changed in the second half. Chartiers-Houston (18-9) trailed, 48-36, with 6:48 remaining in the game before finishing with a 20-3 run.

“I definitely had to keep my head in the game and do what I had to do,” Williamson said. “It was frustrating, but we couldn’t give up.”

The Bucs trailed by as many as eight points in the second half before first-year head coach Laura Montecalvo shifted from a full-court press that Harbor Creek (18-8) had little issue with, to a half-court trap.

It was a strategy that worked in the Bucs’ victory over Neshannock last week, which secured the program’s first state playoff berth since 2001. Chartiers-Houston forced eight fourth-quarter turnovers and did not commit a turnover in the final eight minutes.

The Bucs outrebounded the Huskies, 28-14, including 14 rebounds from Williamson.

“If we rebounded well and boxed out, we win the game,” Harbor Creek head coach Mark Corey said. “Chartiers-Houston played as hard as we did. They wanted to win as badly as we did. We thought he had a defensive scheme to neutralize (Williamson), but she’s a great player. We have some of those too, but we just didn’t get the job done.”

After Huskies senior guard Theresa Frachetti, who scored a team-high 20 points, started the fourth quarter with an easy layup, the Bucs began utilizing the size and physicality of Williamson and sophomore Jala Youngblood, who chipped in eight second-half points.

Williamson’s put back with 2:02 remaining tied the score, 50-50. The Huskies made the front end of a one-and-one on the next possession to grab a one-point lead, but C-H stormed down the court and passed it to Williamson inside, who delivered an easy basket to grab the Bucs’ first lead since midway through the first quarter.

“She rarely has that many misses. I’ve been telling her all season that when you are having a game like that, you have to rebound, you have to play defense,” Montecalvo said. “You have to do everything else that you can do to help your team. I give her credit because she did that.”

Chartiers-Houston, which made 16-of-28 free throws, sealed the monumental win in front of Harbor Creek’s large student section by makings its foul shots in the final minute.

“They finally got it together in the second half,” Montecalvo said. “I didn’t foresee us playing the way we did in the first half. I don’t know whether it was nerves, the long bus ride, their student section, our youth, or if it was all of those things; but it’s how it ends that matters and that’s what gets printed.”

The Bucs missed their first nine attempts from the field and went just 8 of 32 in the first half.

As the second quarter began, Montecalvo pulled senior Jalynn Myers aside and told her if C-H’s season was going to continue, the Bucs needed Myers to, “take over the game.”

She delivered 13 of her 19 points in the first half to help C-H avoid a large halftime deficit. The Bucs trailed 32-25 at the half, despite receiving shooting poorly.

“We got all the open looks, but didn’t finish,” Myers said. “We knew that it was not going our way from the beginning, but we had to fix something quick.”