Deer Lakes boys must beat rival to win title outright

By: Jerin Steele
Thursday, February 9, 2023 | 6:16 PM

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As the Deer Lakes boys basketball team was celebrating senior night following its game Tuesday, word came in that Shady Side Academy had been upset by Derry.

That meant the Lancers were guaranteed a split of the Section 3-3A title regardless of their outcome with the Bulldogs on Friday.

That didn’t change the player’s goals, however.

“Once they heard, all of them told me, “’We don’t want to share this coach,’ and I said ‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ ” first-year coach Fletcher said.

Deer Lakes will look to secure an outright section title when it visits the Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Not only is the outright section title on the line, but a winlikely would secure a top-four seed in the Class 3A playoffs for the Lancers.

To do so they’ll have to beat a Shady Side Academy team that has been a rival in multiple sports.

For years the Lancers and Bulldogs have battled in boys soccer for section titles, including this year when the teams split the Section 2-2A championship. Deer Lakes went on to win the WPIAL Class 2A title.

There’s some who play both sports, including Michael Butler, who scored the winning basket at the buzzer in Deer Lakes’ 53-51 win over the Bulldogs Jan. 17.

“We’re looking forward to the matchup,” Fletcher said. “It’s always a great game. It was a great battle last time that went down to the buzzer. We’re hoping to make it a little less dramatic this time and get a victory a little earlier than with three or four seconds left.

“Anytime we’ve been in the same classification we’ve been in the same section. There’s a lot of familiarity between coaches and players. Individually as programs we’ve had a lot of success, so it usually is pretty competitive and some good basketball.”

Shady Side Academy features standout junior guard Eli Teslovich, who is already a 1,000-point scorer. The Bulldogs have lost senior starter Ethan Salvia for the season because of a knee injury, but still have a solid core around Teslovich, as the defending WPIAL 2A champs.

“Eli is a fantastic player. I think he had 30 against us at our place,” Fletcher said. “He’s very hard to guard. He’s a very dynamic player that can drive and shoot it. As a team they do a great job defensively, and when he was out recently with an injury you could tell that’s where their focus went. They’ve done a great job locking teams down in the halfcourt and kind of changed their style a little bit. They play very well as a team and are well coached. Eli is the main man there, but we know they have a lot of players that can cause problems.”

Deer Lakes got on the radar of many across the WPIAL when it defeated OLSH, 70-55, ending the longest winning streak in Pennsylvania history at 74.

The Lancers dropped three close games in a row to Steel Valley, Avonworth and Burrell following the OLSH win but have won eight of their last nine.

Part of what has made the Lancers successful is balanced scoring. They have multiple guys in double figures almost every game — typically different players every night. Butler, Nate Litrun, Bryce Robson, Billy Schaeffer, Aiden Fletcher, Wayne Love and Collin Rodgers have scored in double digits at least once.

Coach Fletcher credited the kids playing within the system of pressing and pushing the tempo, while being unselfish for the success. They’ll look to take those traits with them to Shady Side Academy Friday.

“When we looked at our roster and said that this is the most athletic group we’ve had here and the most depth,” Fletcher said. “It took awhile for it to come together, but once they saw the impact our style was having on opponents guys like Nate Litrun, Michael Butler and Bryce Robson saw they could go hard for three minutes and if they had to come out for a bit it was okay, because there wasn’t going to be a let down from the guys coming off the bench.”

Jerin Steele is a freelance writer

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