Rumpelstiltskin was nowhere to be found Saturday night inside Upper St. Clair’s locker room, but the Panthers still found a way to turn silver into gold.
With star senior Rylee Kalocay headlining a veteran unit with loads of big-game experience, Upper St. Clair was playing in its fourth WPIAL championship in the past five years — but the previous time the Panthers hoisted a championship trophy, most of their players were in diapers or not even born yet.
Taking on defending champion Norwin (15-8) in the WPIAL Class 6A final at Pitt’s Petersen Events Center, Upper St. Clair had to dig deep to find its second wind after surrendering a late lead. In the end, the No. 2-seeded Panthers withstood the top-seeded Knights’ furious fourth-quarter rally, and Kalocay closed the show with two of the biggest shots of her life to lift Upper St. Clair (19-6) to a 45-40 triumph.
“Going into halftime, I knew I had to turn it up or something, because they were starting to go on a run,” Kalocay said. “Personally, I thrive off the opposing team getting excited. … For me, it’s, ‘OK, what am I going to do to go shut them up?'”
Now in his 11th year at the helm with the Panthers after previous head coaching stints at Mt. Lebanon, Peters Township and Bishop Canevin — not to mention his time as an assistant coach at Oakland Catholic alongside his wife, Suzie McConnell-Serio — Upper St. Clair coach Pete Serio finally claimed his first WPIAL title as a head coach. He insisted his collection of silver medals still is meaningful to him, but all of those close calls and near-misses only made this moment that much sweeter for Serio.
“I’m sure it’s a lot more special right now than it would have been maybe three or four years ago,” Serio said. “It’s everything I thought it would be, and I hope it’s everything [the players] thought it would be, too.”
After a torn ACL in a game against Peters Township in January 2024, Kalocay returned in top form for her senior season without missing a beat. The Kent State recruit and former PUP first-team all-star finished third in the WPIAL in the regular season with an average of 23.9 points per game.
Despite struggling offensively for much of the game, Kalocay led all scorers with 13 points to go with 5 assists for the Panthers. Her game-tying 3-pointer with 2:30 to play helped retake the momentum after a fourth-quarter surge by Norwin, and her layup in the final minute sealed the deal.
“I put about a year of time into this,” Kalocay said. “This is kind of what I fought back for. … I knew I had to do whatever it took to get back.”
Kalocay wasn’t the only player to make a triumphant return from injury for Upper St. Clair, though. Junior point guard Ryan Prunzik sat out of the Panthers’ entire playoff run while recovering from a knee injury, but she returned just in time to play a vital role Saturday in the win. Prunzik tallied 11 points, 3 assists and 3 steals, and her go-ahead layup late in the fourth quarter turned out to be the game-winning bucket.
“[Prunzik] played her butt off, and she got that steal to really turn the momentum back in our favor,” Serio said. “She plays great defense, and she has actually been our leading rebounder for the last two years.”
Kalocay echoed her coach’s sentiments about Prunzik’s return to the lineup and the boost provided by her presence.
“She’s the rock to our team,” Kalocay said. “I’ll give her the credit. She’s the core of our team.”
A key role player who doesn’t typically stuff the stat sheet, Meredith Huzjak came out firing for Upper St. Clair with 8 points in the opening quarter. The Panthers took an 11-8 lead into the second quarter, then their cushion swelled to double digits after 3-pointers by Grace Howell and Kalocay.
After a 9-0 run, Upper St. Clair found itself holding a comfortable 23-10 lead late in the quarter, but the Knights closed the half with five unanswered points to make it a 23-15 score going into the break.
“We’ve been in that situation before, and I thought the girls looked comfortable,” said Norwin coach Brian Brozeski. “Their character was on full display. … They have a championship mindset, and it’s never too late [to come back]. The way they [battled] back, no matter what was the cause, I was very proud of them.”
A 3-pointer by Ryan Prunzik early in the third stretched the Panthers’ lead to 11, then Bella Furno knocked down a 3-pointer for the Knights to narrow the gap to five later in the quarter. After back-to-back baskets by Upper St. Clair, Ava Christopher buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to bring Norwin back to within six going into the fourth.
After trailing the entire game, the Knights steadily chipped away at the deficit in the final quarter, then Christopher tied things up by draining a mid-range jumper with just under three minutes remaining. Furno followed with a 3-pointer to give Norwin its first lead of the game, 40-37, but it was short-lived.
“Very rarely does a team that has the lead for the entire game, from start to finish, lose the lead with less than two minutes to go, and actually be able to fight back and win,” Serio said. “That was rare. And actually, it did make it a lot sweeter, because we really had to fight and claw and dig deep to respond.”
On their next trip down the court, Kalocay knocked down a tying 3-pointer for the Panthers, then Prunzik converted a fast-break layup to put Upper St. Clair back on top, 42-40. Kalocay added a free throw to give the Panthers a bit more breathing room, then her layup in transition with time winding down put the finishing touches on Upper St. Clair’s seventh WPIAL title.
“I feel like if I didn’t push myself, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Kalocay said. “I promised [Serio] one. I told him I wasn’t going out without [a WPIAL title].”
Steve is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at srotstein@unionprogress.com.
