Lehman’s heroics lead Peters Township to first WPIAL title
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Peters Township players celebrate their overtime victory over North Allegheny in Saturday’s WPIAL Class 6A championship game.
Peters Township captains Isabella Mills, Makenna Marisa and Morgan Marisa accept the WPIAL championship trophy after their 43-40 win against North Allegheny.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Peters Township’s Jordan Bisignani passes around the defense of North Allegheny’s Taylor Rowls during Saturday’s WPIAL Class 6A championship game.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Makenna Marisa and Isabella Mills tie up Rachel Martindale for a jump ball during WPIAL championship basketball action. The two will lead a charge into the PIAA playoffs, beginning with Harrisburg Friday.
Morgan Merdian leaps for joy and the rest of the Peters Township bench erupts as the Indians overtake North Allegheny in the WPIAL Class 6A championship game. The Indians now chase a PIAA title. First up is Harrisburg Friday.
Mackenzie Lehman finds the going tough against the North Allegeny defense.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Peters Township’s Mackenzie Lehman rises to shoot the basket, which tied Saturday’s WPIAL Class 6A championship game just before the end of regulation.
Makenna Marisa drives into the teeth of the North Allegheny defense.
Makenna Marisa attempts to put up the shot while heavily defended by North Allegheny during WPIAL championship basketball action.
PITTSBURGH – With two minutes left in overtime, Mackenzie Lehman neared midcourt in Peters Township’s man-to-man defense.
At this time last year, Lehman was finishing a three-mile run to prepare for lacrosse tryouts set for the upcoming week.
She only needed to run about 47 feet to make a difference Saturday night.
In no man’s land near the edge of the Pitt script at midcourt, Lehman read a pass out of the corner of her eye, used her long reach to intercept it and finished with what ended up being the game-winning layup to give Peters Township a 43-40 victory over North Allegheny in the WPIAL Class 6A girls’ basketball championship game at the Petersen Events Center.
It is the first district title for the program, avenging last year’s 79-48 loss to North Allegheny in the finals. The Indians also lost in 2008.
“This beats (running three miles) a lot,” Lehman, who has already orally committed to Liberty University for lacrosse, said.
The 5-11 junior forward is playing her first season of basketball since eighth grade.
“They kept doing that little cross-court pass during regulation and I wanted to try and steal it,” Lehman said. “I didn’t feel confident. I knew it was the right time and knew we needed a big move. It just worked out.”
Lehman sent the game into overtime on a layup with five seconds left to tie the score at 38-38. She scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Peters Township (25-0), which became only the 18th girls team in WPIAL history to win a title with a perfect record.
“I told her after both of those plays, ‘Not bad for a lacrosse player,'” joked Peters Township coach Bert Kendall. “She came up big. She has great length and is a gamer. We did say in a timeout that if you use your outside hand and anticipate the pass, we will end up with a steal. Sure enough, it just happened.”
Isabella Mills made a pair of free throws with 26 seconds left to give the Indians a three-point lead.
North Allegheny (23-2), the two-time defending champs, called a pair of timeouts in the final 10 seconds but its final shot fell short.
“We were selling out for one look and (Peters Township) did a great job to guard it,” said North Allegheny coach Spencer Stefko. “It’s a shame somebody had to lose today.”
Early in the second half, the Tigers made what looked to be a big enough push that could have led to their third consecutive title. Rachel Martindale made a three-pointer and North Allegheny went on a 9-0 run by making its first four shots of the half to lead 28-20 with 4:59 left in the third quarter.
Peters Township awoke on offense for the first time as a team to answer the Tigers’ run. Lehman finished a putback after grabbing an offensive rebound with 1:41 left in the third quarter, igniting an 11-0 run that ended with a Makenna Marisa baseline jumper to give the Indians a 36-32 lead with 4:57 remaining in regulation.
“There was a little doubt at one point,” said Marisa, who scored 12 of her game-high 17 points in the first quarter. “It can never stay that way. We had to stay positive. We were never down by a lot. We trust each other. We gathered ourselves and said, ‘Let’s go guys, we gotta do this.’ We did.”
Peters Township struggled in the first half outside of Marisa. It went scoreless for nearly six minutes in the second quarter until Lehman made a layup with 22 seconds left in the second half, cutting the Indians’ halftime deficit to 19-18.
North Allegheny forced three turnovers in the final two minutes of regulation but couldn’t extend their slim lead at the free-throw line, giving Lehman and Peters Township an opportunity to tie the game on the final possession.
Rachel Martindale was the only player in double figures for North Allegheny with 15 points. Lizzy Groetsch, who guarded Marisa nearly the entire game, finished with eight points.
“I’m as proud of my team in defeat as I would have been in victory,” Stefko said. “We didn’t lose this game because of selfishness. We didn’t lose this game because of laziness. We played our behinds off. We lost this game because of Peters Township. They deserved to win it. They deserve all the credit in the world for that.”
Mills joined Lehman and Marisa in double-digit point totals for the Indians. Lehman was the only player outside of Marisa to score for the Indians in the first half.
“We talked a lot about desire at halftime,” Kendall said. “I think we wanted it more than them in the first quarter. It seemed like they wanted it more than us in the second. We had to reach to deep to go get it. I think it was as exciting of a girls basketball game as we’ve had all year. It was more about desire, digging deep and just taking it.”