Feb 25, 2017 5 min read

CANONSBURG – With a spot in the WPIAL Class 5-A semifinals and a berth in the state playoffs on the line Saturday afternoon at Canon-McMillan High School, the South Fayette girls basketball team left their offense on the bus.

The third-seeded Lions struggled to get things going all afternoon, shooting only 26 percent from the floor and 19 percent from three-point range. South Fayette trailed for all but a few seconds as the Lions were upset by sixth-seeded Chartiers Valley 48-31.

It was the third matchup of the season between the schools with the Colts winning the past two.

Chartiers Valley (17-7) moves on to take on Trinity, which beat Gateway in overtime, in the WPIAL semifinals Wednesday.

“This is a good group,” said Chartiers Valley head coach Dan Slain. “You know the formula for success. It’s 70 percent talent, 20 percent coaching and 10 percent luck. We have a talented group and they play well together. There are some things we needed to fine tune from the last couple of times we played, especially defensively, and we were great defensively today.”

South Fayette (17-6) scored only nine first-half points and trailed by double digits for the entire second half.

“You aren’t going to beat anyone scoring nine points in a half,” said South Fayette head coach Matt Bacco.

The Colts ran their offense all afternoon through center Gabby Legister. Nearly every trip down the floor CV was able to dump the ball down into the low post to Legister and she either made the Lions pay by making a layup or finding an open teammate.

Legister led all scorers with 21points.

“When you have a 6-2 Division 1 prospect like Gabby, you want to be an inside-out team,” Slain said. “We wanted to get her touches today. We have kids that can score 30 a game, but that isn’t our style. They would rather get the W then see what they can do in the box score. That is what is so great about this group of kids.”

Things started great for the Lions. Carlee Kilgus grabbed the opening tip and drove right to the basket for a layup to give SF a 2-0 lead.

However, the Lions proceeded to miss their next eight shots and only made one of their next 11 to close the first quarter as the Colts put together an 11-2 run to take a 11-4 lead after one quarter.

The rim wasn’t kinder to the Lions in the second quarter as South Fayette made one of 11 shots.

Chartiers Valley, however, didn’t take advantage and led by only 19-9 at the half.

“We’ve been playing from behind a lot lately,” Bacco said. “We’ve gotten used to it, but they were great today.”

After back-to-back steals and layups from Maddie Gutierrez and Jordan Head, the Lions cut the Colts’ lead to 10 at 27-17 late in the third quarter but SF never got closer.

The Lions were led in scoring by Carlee Kilgus with nine points.

Things didn’t go any better for the South Fayette boys team as the Lions fell to No. 2 seed Quaker Valley, 56-44, in the Class AAAA quarterfinals, which was the final game of a tripleheader.

South Fayette competed well and held a 35-32 lead after three quarters, but the Quakers blitzed the Lions with a 22-1 run to start the fourth quarter to take command and erase any chance of a South Fayette upset.

“The effort we gave was amazing,” said South Fayette head coach Dave Mislan. “We controlled the tempo and really grinded for three quarters. I think they came out in the fourth and were just determined to get to the basket and they took the game over.”

Trailing just 22-17 at the half, the Lions (13-11) opened the third quarter on a 12-3 run to take a 29-25 lead. Ten of those 12 points came from Noah Plack and Luke Meindl.

Plack led the Lions with 13 points and Meindl had 10.

Quaker Valley (21-2), who never made a substitution and played the same five players all game, got layups from Amos Luptak, Danny Conlan and Ricky Guss to open the fourth quarter and reclaim the lead.

Shortly thereafter, Conlan made another layup and a three-point shot to put the Quakers up 41-35.

“The idea was to switch to zone at some point, but we never got the opportunity,” Mislan said. “They kept scoring and we weren’t scoring so we couldn’t switch it up on the fly. We started getting really wide on defense and there were more gaps for them to drive.”

Conlan led the Quakers with 16 points, 12 in the second half. Coletrain Washington had 15 points and Guss 11.

The Lions struggled from three-point range, making 3 of 20 attempts.

“We aren’t a great shooting team to begin with,” Mislan said. “Once you fall behind and have to start chucking three’s, that isn’t our strength.”