A-K Valley WPIAL basketball preview playoff capsule for Thursday’s game

By:
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 | 4:15 PM


Girls

Class 2A

Quarterfinals

No. 6 Leechburg (19-4) vs. No. 3 Chartiers-Houston (17-5)

6:30 p.m. Thursday at West Allegheny

On the air:TribHSSN.triblive.com

Winner plays: No. 2 OLSH (19-2) or No. 7 Brentwood (16-6)

Layup lines: Leechburg and Chartiers-Houston meet in the WPIAL quarterfinals for the second consecutive season. Chartiers-Houston won, 60-44, last season, pulling away in the fourth quarter with a 21-9 closing run. … This game pits two of the top players in WPIAL Class 2A: Leechburg’s Mikayla Lovelace, an IUP recruit, and Char-Houston’s Alexa Williamson, a Temple recruit. Both reached 2,000 career points earlier this season, with Lovelace eclipsing the milestone with a 37-point performance in Leechburg’s 75-60 first-round win over Frazier. … The Section 2-2A runner up, Leechburg boasts the highest-scoring offense in the classification (62.7 points per game). Lovelace averages 24.5 ppg. The Blue Devils start five seniors — Cam Davies, Makenzie Fello, Daesha Knight, Lovelace and Brittany Robilio. Robilio ranks second on the team in scoring and has more than 200 career 3-pointers. Leechburg is seeking its first WPIAL semifinal appearance. … Defending WPIAL champion Chartiers-Houston tied for the Section 1-2A championship with OLSH. The Bucs’ stingy defense allows just 33 ppg, a total Williamson — the WPIAL’s leading scorer at 31.8 ppg — nearly exceeds by herself. Chartiers-Houston outscored teams by more than 20 ppg.

—Doug Gulasy

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review Staff Writer. You can contact Doug at 412-388-5830, dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter .

Tags: ,

More High School Basketball

Westmoreland high school notebook: Puck drops for area’s PIHL teams
Penn Hills notebook: Basketball grad to play professionally in Ireland
New coach Gabby Baldasare excited to fill big shoes with North Allegheny girls basketball
Dana Petruska comes out of retirement to take over as girls basketball coach at Deer Lakes
Imani Christian basketball player among 3 transfers ruled ineligible by WPIAL