With 6-foot-10 center Ama Sow dominating opponents down low, Montour has had loads of success this season and can make a case for being the WPIAL’s best team, regardless of class.
But this is no one-man team, as the players around Sow know their roles and play them well. One of those players is senior Colton Straight, whose emergence as a secondary scorer has played an important role in Montour’s success.
Straight is a 6-foot guard who has had a breakout season for the Spartans, who are 15-1 overall and 9-0 in Class 5A Section 4. Straight played just nine minutes per game and averaged just 4 points a game a season ago. But as a first-year starter this season, he’s playing twice the minutes and scoring four times the points. He’s averaging 16.6 points per game, second on the team behind Sow’s 22.3. Fellow senior Kaleb Platz has chipped in 11.3, giving the Spartan’s three double-digit scorers.
“With Colton and Kaleb, it stretches the court and gives Ama room to work,” Montour coach Bill Minear said. “High school has followed the NBA with guys shooting from 25 feet, and they have that kind of range. Our other two guys, AJ Alston and Trey Hopper, do a great job of being unselfish.”
Straight’s breakout actually began last summer when he starred for Montour in the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Summer League. Minear said Straight and Sow carried a young Montour team. And it was Straight, not Sow, who earned league co-MVP honors after pumping in 30 points per game.
“My junior year I didn’t play too much, so that gave me a lot of confidence,” Straight said.
Since last season, Straight said he has made his biggest strides with his passing and defense. But his shooting has improved a lot, too, and that may be his biggest strength. Straight is shooting 49% from the field and 38% from 3-point range, and his 27 3-pointers lead the team.
“When he shoots, I’m surprised when it doesn’t go in,” Minear said.
Straight has been especially good as of late. In a recent three-game stretch against Mars, Chartiers Valley and Blackhawk, Straight put up point totals of 24, 29 and 21 for an average of almost 25 points per game. In what was a big win against Chartiers Valley, Straight scored 15 of Montour’s 16 points in the opening quarter.
“He’s getting some more looks because teams have tried to take Ama away,” Minear said. “And when he gets out on the break, he finishes the ball really well.”
Division III schools are showing interest, Straight said, among them Pitt-Greensburg and Penn State Altoona.
The first to do it
Two weeks ago, the PUP profiled Nazareth Prep coach Tanya Garner, who two seasons ago became only the third female to coach a boys basketball team in WPIAL history. It turns out that the first woman to do it not only knows Garner, but also she works on the same grounds as Nazareth Prep.
Audrey Scott made history in 1991 when she became the head boys basketball coach at Vincentian. Scott, 66, is a retired Pittsburgh police officer who now works at Holy Family Institute. Nazareth Prep is a sponsored program of Holy Family Institute and was previously known as Holy Family Academy. Scott works in the Customer Assistance Program, which assists individuals with paying for their light bills.
Scott was just 32 when she took the Vincentian job more than three decades ago. She had been an assistant coach a season earlier under her brother, Rod Scott. While Garner has Nazareth Prep looking like a WPIAL Class 1A title contender, Audrey Scott didn’t share in the same success when she was at Vincentian. In fact, Vincentian did not win a game in her two seasons, going 0-23 and 0-22.
“But I would do it again in a heartbeat,” said Scott, a member of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Women’s Hall of Fame. “They were such good kids. They just weren’t good basketball players. But you know what, they were really fun to coach. They listened, and they tried hard.”
Upon leaving Vincentian, Scott was hired as the women’s coach at La Roche. A newspaper headline read, “La Roche College hires 0-45 coach.” As it turns out, Scott’s luck wasn’t much better at La Roche. She dropped her first 13 games and was 3-51 in two seasons. Scott, once a star player at Northgate High School and then Edinboro University, coached for another two decades, among her stops being Robert Morris, Penn Hills, Keystone Oaks and Shady Side Academy.
There have been only four women who have coached WPIAL boys basketball teams. Following Scott was Carol Gelet, who guided Clairton to back-to-back WPIAL titles in 1997 and 1998. Garner then became the third more than two decades later. Annie Malkowiak took over at Mount Pleasant last season. After helping the Vikings reach the playoffs in her first season, Malkowiak’s team is 0-18 this season.
Scott said she hopes Garner’s story inspires more women to become boys head coaches.
“I do because there are so many young basketball players who have come out of here that are great role models and great coaches,” Scott said. “I don’t think [athletic directors] are willing to hire females. I’m not sure if it’s because of the locker room situation or that they don’t think females can get across to boys. Obviously, that’s been proven not to be true.”
City clash
One of the biggest games of the week will take place Friday in Squirrel Hill when City League leader Allderdice hosts second-place Obama Academy in a game that should go a long way in determining the league’s regular-season champion.
Allderdice (8-9 overall) is 5-0 in league play, while Obama (6-6) is 4-1. Allderdice is riding some impressive streaks, but Obama gave the Dragons a game in the first meeting on Jan. 14 before falling, 43-39. Obama led by five points with four minutes left before Allderdice rallied for the win. Asher Schwartz led Allderdice with 14 points, and Naron Jackson paced Obama with 16.
As for those streaks, Allderdice comes into the week riding a 50-game win streak against City League foes, a run of success that includes both regular-season and postseason games. The four-time defending City League champs have also won 10 in a row against Obama. Allderdice’s last loss against Obama was also its most recent City League defeat, that being a 50-39 loss to Obama in the 2020 City League championship.
Moore nears 2K
A week after Avonworth’s Rowan Carmichael became the 38th WPIAL boys basketball player to reach 2,000 career points, another player could join him in the WPIAL’s 2K Club.
Belle Vernon senior guard Zion Moore enters the week with 1,942 career points. Moore is averaging 25.5 points per game this season and Belle Vernon has three regular-season games remaining, so Moore could hit the mark even before the playoffs get underway. Belle Vernon (15-4 overall, 8-1 in Class 4A Section 3) travels to Elizabeth Forward on Tuesday, hosts East Allegheny on Friday, and plays at Greensburg Salem next Tuesday.
Moore led the WPIAL in scoring last season with 26.3 points per game and this season ranks second behind Carmichael. Moore, who played at Ringgold his freshman season, has averaged at least 21 points each of his four seasons.
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.