Aliquippa might have come up short in its quest for the school’s first WPIAL three-peat, but shortly after his team lost to South Allegheny by two points in the Class 3A final, Quips coach Nick Lackovich already had his eyes on another prize.
“It’s not over. It’s a tough one to swallow, but it’s not over. … We’re still the defending [state] champs until somebody buries us,” Lackovich said.
Of the three WPIAL teams that won PIAA titles last season (Lincoln Park and Imani Christian were the others), Aliquippa is the only one to qualify for this year’s tournament. The Quips have become accustomed to making the late-March trip to Hershey for the championship, having advanced to the final three years in a row. A fourth straight trip would put the Quips in special company.
The last school from the WPIAL to reach the PIAA final four years in a row isn’t even in existence anymore. That would be Midland, which advanced to the final each year from 1973-1976, winning titles three of those seasons. Midland capped that terrific four-year run by beating Holy Ghost Prep, 51-50, for the Class 2A title in 1976. In a game played at old Hersheypark Arena, Chuck Gomez hit the winning jump shot with just under a minute left. Gomez scored a game-high 18 points, with Jim Slappy and Larry Stevens adding 10 apiece.
Aliquippa now has a chance to do something that hasn’t been done in nearly 50 years. The Quips lost in the PIAA Class 3A final in 2022 and the Class 2A final in 2023 before beating Holy Cross for the Class 2A title last season. Aliquippa has advanced to the championship game 13 times in school history, and its six PIAA titles are the most of any WPIAL school. The Quips can also become the first WPIAL team with 100 PIAA tournament wins. They currently have 97.
“[It’s] no different. We were in [Class] 3A before, and we went to Hershey. We went to [Class] 2A, and we went to Hershey. We’re shooting for our fourth consecutive trip to Hershey,” added Lackovich, who guided the Quips to their two most recent titles in 2016 and 2024.
Junior guards Josh Pratt and Qa’lil Goode were both starters on last year’s championship team. Pratt was one of the stars of those championships, scoring a game-high 36 points for a Quips’ team that shot 55% from the field in the game. Pratt (18 points) and Goode (9) were Aliquippa’s top scorers in the 37-35 loss to South Allegheny in the WPIAL championship.
Aliquippa (20-5) opens the PIAA tournament by hosting Westmont Hilltop (18-6), the third-place finisher out of District 6, in Saturday’s first round. The programs actually have a long history. Of Aliquippa’s 97 PIAA wins, the second came against Westmont way back in the 1949 Class A quarterfinals. Under coach Sam Milanovich, Aliquippa rallied from 6 points down at the half to beat Westmont, 47-40. Mickey Zernich scored 14 points and Jimmy Frank 10, and George “Sudie” Danovich made what proved to be the winning basket. The Quips went on to finish as unbeaten state champions.
Joe’s final ride
One of the top storylines of the WPIAL championships was Joe Salvino guiding Belle Vernon to a title in his final season. That in itself has provided a storybook ending to the career of one of the district’s all-time winningest coaches. But if he’s able to add one last PIAA title to his resume, the story of Salvino’s final ride might be worthy of the big screen.
After winning the seventh WPIAL title of his career and first at Belle Vernon, Salvino, 73, will begin his pursuit of a third PIAA championship when the Leopards open the Class 4A tournament with a first-round game against visiting Farrell.
Belle Vernon will need to win five games to claim the title. That’s the same number of wins it has all time in the PIAA playoffs, its last triumph coming in a first-round game in 2022. The Leopards have advanced past the second round just once, reaching the Class 3A quarterfinals in 1978.
Salvino, second in WPIAL history with 744 wins, guided Monessen to back-to-back PIAA Class 1A titles in 1988 and 1989. Those titles actually came before Salvino led Monessen to six WPIAL championships. The Greyhounds defeated Bristol in the 1988 final and Camp Hill Trinity in the 1989 final.
Will the big class drought end?
Three WPIAL teams won PIAA titles last season, most since 2004, this after two claimed championships in both 2022 and 2023. And while District 7 has had a lot of success at the state level in recent seasons, it’s been a while since a WPIAL team playing in the largest class has claimed gold.
Upper St. Clair, New Castle, Central Catholic and Mt. Lebanon are the WPIAL teams competing in the Class 6A bracket. When it comes to winning the title or even reaching the final, history is not on their side. A WPIAL team has not reached the final in the largest classification since Pine-Richland advanced to the Class 6A final in 2017, a season after City League power Allderdice reached the Class 4A final (the final season of four classes). A WPIAL team has not won a championship in largest class since New Castle captured the Class 4A title in 2014. New Castle (2014) and Penn Hills (2004) are the only WPIAL teams to win PIAA titles in the largest class this century.
But maybe this will be the year a WPIAL team ends the drought. It’s not hard to imagine Upper St. Clair, in particular, making a long run. The Panthers have good guard play, lots of height, and are a senior-laden bunch. They also own a win against the defending champion, having defeated Central York, 52-50, at home on Dec. 30. Central York had defeated Upper St. Clair in last season’s quarterfinals. Like Upper St. Clair, Central York has only two losses this season. Both teams are on the same half of the bracket, and could meet in the semifinals. The other half of the bracket features Philadelphia Public League champion Imhotep Charter, which won three consecutive PIAA Class 5A titles before moving up to Class 6A this season.
Them again
While we won’t see any WPIAL vs. WPIAL matchups in the first round, there could be quite a few of them in the second round, with the most anticipated being a fourth meeting between section rivals Chartiers Valley and Montour.
The last time we saw those two teams duke it out, Chartiers Valley avenged a pair of regular-season losses to Montour by rallying from 15 points down to stun the top-seeded Spartans, 47-44, in the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals. Chartiers Valley, the No. 4 seed, went on to win its first title since 2015. Both teams host District 3 teams in the first round, with Chartiers Valley taking on Cocalico and Montour facing Milton Hershey.
“It was definitely a championship environment,” Chartiers Valley coach Corey Dotchin said of the semifinal with Montour. “They were the top team that everyone had in the WPIAL all season long, but I told these guys that, ‘If we don’t get the job done [in the championship], [the semifinal win] doesn’t mean anything.’ So to be able to win the way we did going through the path that we did, I’ve got to give these guys a ton of credit because they’ve had plenty of opportunities to crumble. Being down 15 to Montour, they could have packed it all in. But they fought together, they played together, they believed in the plan, and that’s why we’re sitting up here.”
Belle Vernon and Avonworth played a thriller in the WPIAL Class 4A semifinals, and the two could meet again in the second round of the PIAA playoffs. Each opens up with District 10 teams, with Belle Vernon hosting Farrell and Avonworth playing at Sharon. Belle Vernon slipped past Avonworth, 57-56, in the WPIAL semifinals before going on to win its first title since 1978.
Players to watch
Many of the WPIAL’s top players will take part in the tournament, among them Upper St. Clair’s Tyler Robbins, Montour’s Ama Sow and Neighborhood Academy’s Courtney Wallace. Robbins had 12 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks in the WPIAL Class 6A final, while Sow averages a double-double (21 points, 17 rebounds) on the season and Wallace a triple-double (22 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists). Robbins will play at Miami (Ohio), Sow at UT Martin and Wallace at Yale.
Unlike in years past, this field isn’t littered with top 25 national talents, at least not in the junior and senior classes. But there are two highly regarded sophomores in Roman Catholic 6-2 guard Tyler Sutton (No. 25 nationally by Rivals) and Archbishop Carroll 6-5 forward Munir Greig (No. 35). Roman Catholic also features senior guard Shareef Jackson, a Lafayette recruit who was named first-team all-Philadelphia Catholic League. Archbishop Carroll 6-6 junior forward Luca Foster has offers from Pitt, Villanova and Penn State, among others.
District 6 champion Johnstown has one of the top point guards in this half of the state in 6-3 senior Donte Tisinger, the school’s all-time leading scorer and a Boston University recruit. Tisinger scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a win against Central Catholic back in December. Johnstown (24-1) is a team to watch. The Trojans also own wins against Knoch and Gateway. They host Moon in a Class 5A first-round game.
Athletically, you won’t find many players as gifted as Chambersburg’s J.J. Kelly, a 6-5 senior guard and Ohio recruit who could have just as easily chosen to compete in two other sports in college. Kelly is a three-time PIAA track and field champion in the triple jump and held Power Four football offers from Syracuse and Iowa State.
A long time coming
Some of the WPIAL teams qualifying for the state tournament are accustomed to winning games in the PIAA playoffs. As for a few of the others, well, not so much.
Class 2A Chartiers-Houston and Class 1A Aquinas Academy hope to make history by notching PIAA wins for the first time. Both open on the road against District 10 champions, with Chartiers-Houston taking on Lakeview and Aquinas Academy facing Erie First Christian. Chartiers-Houston is 0-2 all time in the tournament, having lost first-round games in 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, Aquinas Academy is making its PIAA debut. The Crusaders won a WPIAL playoff game for the first time just two seasons ago.
Three other WPIAL teams are seeking their first PIAA wins this century. Class 5A Latrobe last won a PIAA game in 1990, Class 5A Penn-Trafford in 1993 and Class 4A Knoch in 1997.
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.