Some Upper St. Clair fans held up two fingers during the closing seconds of Friday’s WPIAL Class 6A championship, signaling that their team was about to win a second consecutive title.
Fueling the Panthers’ race to a repeat wasn’t two, though, it was the 3.
No. 1 Upper St. Clair enjoyed a significant height advantage Friday against No. 2 New Castle, yet on this night it wasn’t the trees, but the 3’s, that propelled the Panthers to a 65-43 win at Pitt’s Petersen Events Center.
It was the third WPIAL title in five seasons and fifth overall for Upper St. Clair (23-2), which became only the fifth team in the past 40 years to repeat as champions in the largest class. The last to do it was Pine-Richland in 2016 and 2017, with one of its titles coming in Class 4A (before the expansion to six classes) and the other in Class 6A.
“It’s pretty cool. Nobody has done it at the 6A level and nobody has done it at St. Clair, so we’re the first,” said senior center Tyler Robbins, a Miami (Ohio) recruit. “I’ll obviously hope they do it again next year and get a three-peat. Even though I won’t be on the team, I’ll still be rooting for them.”
Robbins, who is 6 feet 10, finished with 12 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks for Upper St. Clair, which also started 6-6 Kaamil Jackson and brought 6-7 Ryan Robbins off the bench. Meanwhile, New Castle’s tallest players were 6-4 and 6-3. New Castle (21-4), which was looking to break a tie with Aliquippa and win a record 15th title, devoted a lot of attention to defending Upper St. Clair’s bigs. That allowed the Panthers to get some clean looks from the perimeter, and they took advantage of it by going 8 of 17 from 3-point range. All five starters, including the 6-10 Robbins, hit 3s, with Nico Gidas accounting for three of them.
“That’s the one thing that can’t happen,” said New Castle coach Ralph Blundo, who was trying to win his eighth title. “You hate to go into a game giving something up, and to some degree you are because it requires so much help and so much attention.”
Five of Upper St. Clair’s 3-pointers came during a first half that saw the teams deadlocked, 23-23, following a 3-pointer by New Castle’s Damian Harrison with 1:33 left. That’s when Upper St. Clair began to pull away, using a 6-0 run to close the half as the Panthers surged to a 29-23 lead on Gianni Disora’s steal and layup in the final seconds.
“That was big for us going into the half, and we carried that momentum into the locker room and brought it back out with us,” Robbins said. “They’re typically a third-quarter team, but we just kind of played well in the third quarter, I guess.”
Well, “well” would be an understatement. Upper St. Clair limited New Castle to 6 points on 2-of-14 shooting in the third quarter and led, 42-29, after three quarters. The Red Hurricanes got no closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
Upper St. Clair’s accuracy from 3-point range might have surprised some, but its outstanding play defensively should not have stunned anyone. The Panthers came in with one of the WPIAL’s top scoring defenses at 39 points per game. They would hold New Castle to 32% shooting (17 of 53) and limit the Red Hurricanes to their fewest points since scoring 39 in a loss to Imhotep Charter in the PIAA final in 2022. Ralphie Blundo led New Castle with 13 points and Harrison added 11, but standout freshman Kai Cox, who was averaging a team-high 17 points per game, was held to just 5 on 2-of-11 shooting.
“When we shoot well and we can go inside out, it’s difficult to beat us,” said Upper St. Clair coach Danny Holzer, who won his fifth title in the same season he picked up his 500th career win.
“There’s no doubt we’re a pretty good high school team. I think it all starts with our defense. I think our half-court defense is just tremendous. Tyler is a rim protector, but [Julian Dahlem] and the rest of our perimeter guys are athletic and tough. We have two levels on defense that are pretty tough to beat when we are playing together, and we’ve pretty much done that the entire year.”
In addition to Robbins’ 12 points, Upper St. Clair got 11 points from Gidas and 10 from Jake Foster. Ryan Robbins added 9, Dahlem 8 and Jackson 7.
“We knew we were the better team, and we came out and dominated,” Dahlem said.
Afterward, Holzer had a big smile on his face when speaking about this team, one that includes 10 seniors, and the way it ended the WPIAL season as it started.
“We were preseason No. 1 by everybody, and everybody was gunning for us, and we went wire to wire,” he said, “and that’s hard to do at any level in any sport.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.