Fort Cherry basketball advances to state semis for 1st time since 1961
Mark Marietta | For the Observer-Reporter
McMURRAY — At times, the high school basketball game between Fort Cherry and Jeannette looked more like a football game, complete with technical fouls and chirping from both sides.
Somehow, these two teams muddled through 32 minutes of basketball at Peters Township High School with Fort Cherry clawing its way to a 70-60 win in the PIAA Class 2A boys quarterfinals Saturday afternoon.
The quarterfinal win puts Fort Cherry in the state semifinals, a place it hadn’t been to since the Marty Schottenheimer-led team won the 1961 state basketball title, 51-41, over Saint Clair of District 11. And the bus driver for that team was Kay Briggs, the late father of the current Fort Cherry head coach Eugene Briggs.
Fort Cherry will have its toughest challenge of the playoffs when Aliquippa arrives for the semifinals Tuesday at Pine-Richland. The game is scheduled to tip-off at 5:30 p.m.
“We’re both the same,” said Briggs. “They’re never going to lay back and let you just play.”
Fort Cherry is two wins shy of tying the school record of 25. The Rangers are 23-6 after beating Jeannette.
“That’s why they’re good all the time,” Briggs said of Jeannette’s aggressiveness. “But we’re that way too.”
Jeannette (18-10) held the lead only once during the game at 19-18 with 4:45 to go before halftime. A 10-0 run late in the third quarter gave Fort Cherry a 50-34 lead, the largest of the game for the Rangers.
Derek Errett, a 5-10 senior guard, scored six of the 10 in the run and finished with 22 points. Errett and Blake Sweder, a 5-11 sophomore guard, each broke free on Jeannete’s defense for numerous easy layups, thrilling the Fort Cherry fans and frustrating the Jayhawks to the point of fouling whenever possible.
Two hard fouls brought technical foul calls, and when Kymone Brown fouled Errett and stepped over him while he was laying on his back, Errett fired the basketball into the back of Brown that caused a short melee. Order was restored with police on the basketball court.
“I like that kind of game, but I don’t like to sit out (with my fifth foul),” said Errett. “We like to play against hard people and take it to them.”
“I like the energy it brings out from us and the fans,” said Shane Conali, who finished with 21 points.
Jeannette had three players in double figures, led by guard Isaiah Mallich’s 19, the only senior in the starting lineup for Jeannette. Brown had 14 and Markus McGowan finished with 11.
“Our last few games, we haven’t turned the ball over very much,” said Jeannette head coach Adam Batts. “In the first half, we had six or seven empty possessions, where we didn’t get a shot at the basket. That hurt us. We got off of our game. You gotta give Fort Cherry a lot of credit. It wasn’t our day.”