Defending champion New Castle reaches WPIAL finals for 8th time in 11 years
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Monday, February 28, 2022 | 10:57 PM
New Castle’s Mike Wells (3) leads the Red Hurricanes from the court after defeating Gateway in their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells dunks during the fourth quarter of a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal against Gateway on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Da’Juan Young celebrates after a Mike Wells dunk during the fourth quarter of a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal against Gateway on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Graham drives past Gateway’s Michael Crawford during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Jonathan Anderson scores past Gateway’s Michael Crawford during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells pressures Gateway’s Michael Stevenson during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells scores past Gateway’s Taili Thompson during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Zay Boice lands in the crowd after a three-point attempt during a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal against Gateway on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells scores between Gateway defenders during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Jonathan Anderson scores against Gateway’s Ryan Greggerson during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells battles Gateway’s Taili Thompson for a loose ball during their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells steals the ball from Gateway’s Will Kromka during the fourth quarter of their WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Mike Wells dunks during the fourth quarter of a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal against Gateway on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
New Castle’s Zay Boice celebrates after defeating Gateway in a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, at UMPC Events Center in Moon.
The road to the WPIAL championship winds through gyms all across Western Pennsylvania, but New Castle rarely gets lost along the way.
They know the route better than most.
“This is the road we take every year,” senior Mike Wells said Monday night, after the Red Hurricanes clinched their eighth trip to the WPIAL finals in an 11-year span.
This year’s road trip took them to Robert Morris’ UPMC Events Center on Monday, but once again it will end at Pitt’s Petersen Events Center. Wells scored 23 points and junior Isaiah Boice had 22 as second-seeded New Castle celebrated a 72-62 victory over No. 6 Gateway in a WPIAL Class 5A semifinal.
“We work for this,” Wells said. “The summer conditioning, the defensive slides at practice, this is what we work toward — playing at the Pete and making championship games. It’s nothing new to us.”
New Castle (23-1), the defending WPIAL champion, will face No. 1 Laurel Highlands (24-0) in the finals at 9 p.m. Friday at Pitt’s arena. The Mustangs have won 24 games in a row since losing to New Castle, 69-60, in last year’s WPIAL semifinals.
Laurel Highlands defeated Highlands, 61-44, in the Monday’s other semifinal.
“There’s the No. 1 team in the state,” New Castle coach Ralph Blundo said. “They’re obviously an outstanding basketball team. We have tons of respect for them. We’ll do what we have to do over the next few days to get ourselves ready.”
First, New Castle had to eliminate upset-minded Gateway (15-6), which reached the WPIAL semifinals for the first time in 10 years. Will Kromka scored 21 points, Jaydon Carr had 16, and M.J. Stevenson had 11, but the Gators couldn’t keep pace with New Castle’s 3-point shooting.
The Red Hurricanes went 7 for 18 from beyond the arc, and Boice had four 3s.
“I didn’t realize they shot the ball that well,” Gateway coach Alvis Rogers said. “They shot extremely well. All the film I looked at, even their home games, they didn’t shoot it that well, so I was surprised.”
The Gators went 4 for 17 from 3-point range.
Gateway’s height advantage at times caused New Castle some trouble around the rim. But overall, New Castle shot nearly 60% from the field in the first half and led 35-26 at the break.
New Castle scored 10 consecutive points in one first-half stretch including consecutive transition layups for New Castle’s Jonathan Anderson, who had 13 points. The run stretched a four-point lead to 12.
The Gators went scoreless for more than three minutes, stretching into the second quarter.
“We did a pretty good job of keeping them away from the rim, and then we rebounded well during that stretch,” Blundo said. “We got a couple of run-outs, a couple of easy buckets and that got us going.”
New Castle kept the lead with its outside shooting. Boice made two 3s in the second quarter and two more in the third. Michael Graham added two 3s and Wells had one.
Boice made two 3s about 80 seconds apart in the third quarter to push New Castle’s lead to 13 points. The 6-foot guard went 4 for 7 from the arc combined in the second and third quarters.
“That was probably one of our better shooting games all year,” Wells said. “We haven’t shot the ball as good as we did last year, but (tonight) Isaiah Boyce and Mike Graham came out confident. That was definitely key.”
New Castle led 52-43 after three.
“Maybe we don’t shoot it like that every night, but we’re capable of shooting like that,” Blundo said. “We’ve had games where we have 10, 11 or 12. One night maybe they’re going in, the next night maybe they’re not. Tonight they went in.”
A 3-pointer by Kromka late in the third pulled Gateway to within nine points, but the Gators got no closer. They shot only 39 percent from the field despite having a good shooting night four days earlier when they upset No. 3 Mars.
“We didn’t shoot it well, which is surprising because we do a lot of shooting in practice,” Rogers said. “But you have those nights. I always tell them offense sometimes take a night off. Defense has to travel.”
Wells scored 10 points in the fourth, including a pair of breakaway dunks in the final minutes.
Gateway was making its first semifinals appearance since winning a WPIAL title in 2012. In contrast, New Castle has reached at least the semifinals every season since Blundo was hired in 2010-11.
“You can tell they’ve been here,” Rogers said. “I always tell me guys, in order to be the champ, you’ve got to beat the champ. It’s a learning experience.”
The WPIAL sends seven teams to the PIAA Class 5A playoffs, so Gateway’s season isn’t over.
This will be the third WPIAL championship appearance for New Castle seniors Wells and Graham, who won titles in 2021 and ’19. The team is headed to its eighth WPIAL final in Blundo’s 12 seasons as coach.
New Castle is 7-0 in those games.
“Our guys have been here before,” Blundo said, “and they’re comfortable here.”
Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.
Tags: Gateway, New Castle
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