HERSHEY — Upper St. Clair was able to hang with Perkiomen Valley for a quarter Friday.
That’s when the wheels came off for the Panthers, who saw their drive for a second state title break down on their way to a lopsided loss.
Fueled by a pair of Division I-bound seniors, District 1 champion Perkiomen Valley limited Upper St. Clair to 23% shooting and used its height advantage to dominate down low en route to a 58-27 mercy-rule win in the PIAA Class 6A championship at Giant Center.
The loss ended what was an outstanding season for Upper St. Clair (23-7), which won its first WPIAL title since 2008 and reached the PIAA final for the first time since capturing its only title in 1999. And it also ended the coaching career of Pete Serio, who presided over the Panthers’ program for 11 seasons, and before that was an assistant for his wife, Suzie McConnell-Serio, now one of Pete’s assistants at Upper St. Clair.
“It’s been so much fun these last six weeks. I was going to get emotional whether we won or lost because I knew it was over,” Serio said. “To me, it’s about being over. Yeah, it hurts to lose like that, but to me it’s about the six seniors and it’s over. And it’s for me, too. This one, I was going to be emotional no matter what today because I knew this was it. And what better way to end it for me than winning a WPIAL title and ending up in Hershey.”
The game itself Friday was no sweet and plenty of sour for Upper St. Clair, which was actually playing Perkiomen Valley (28-3), located 33 miles northwest of Philadelphia, for the second time this season. The Vikings traveled to Western Pennsylvania in December and left town with a 63-57 win. The rematch wasn’t so close, though, with Upper St. Clair being held to 9-of-38 shooting from the field, including 3 of 17 from 3-point range. Panthers’ star senior Rylee Kalocay, a Kent State recruit who came in averaging 23 points per game, was limited to a team-best 10 points on 3-of-17 shooting. The Panthers didn’t score more than eight points in any quarter.
“The way they played against us in December and the film that I have watched, that’s the best defense I’ve seen them play all year. They were all over the place,” said Serio, whose team had won eight consecutive games.
Added Kalocay, “We played them earlier in the season and we played them better then. We could have come out a lot better. I personally could have played a lot better. This is no way anybody wants to end their career, let alone their season. But it is what it is. You really can’t control it now.”
Perkiomen Valley fully controlled the game over the final three quarters. After outscoring Upper St. Clair, 11-7, in the opening quarter, the Vikings scored the first eight points of the second quarter before going on to outscore the Panthers, 19-5, in the frame to take a 30-12 halftime lead. It was more of the same in the third quarter, with the Vikings beginning the quarter on a 7-0 run before invoking the mercy rule when Bella Bacani’s 3-pointer with 1:15 left increased their lead to 50-19.
As good as Perkiomen Valley was defensively, the Vikings might have been just as good offensively. They shot 47% from the field (23 of 53) and committed only two turnovers. The Vikings were led by Division I recruits Quinn Boettinger and Grace Galbavy. Boettinger, a 6-foot-3 senior center and Wake Forest recruit, scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while Galbavy, a 6-foot senior guard and Navy recruit, finished with 14 points and seven rebounds. That length provided a smaller Upper St. Clair team with a lot of problems and led Perkiomen Valley to holding a 32-17 rebounding advantage (10-3 on the offensive glass) and a 36-12 edge in points in the paint.
“They’re really good,” Serio said. “They’ve got two Division I players and two Division II players. They have four scholarship players. And they shot the crap out of the ball today. We made a lot of mistakes, but it wasn’t because we were just happy to be here. I can promise you that. I just think we ran into a really good team tonight. Once things started going poorly, we never seemed to recover. We needed a momentum boost, but we never got it.”
Lena Stein, a West Chester-bound senior guard, also scored in double-digits for Perkiomen Valley, whose state title was their first. Stein drilled three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points to go along with seven rebounds.
“It was just harder to guard so many options when so many people are hitting,” Kalocay said.
Only five players scored for Upper St. Clair. In addition to Kalocay’s 10 points, fellow senior Olivia Terlecki chipped in six points — all on 3-pointers — and junior Ryan Prunzik had five.
And while this was a game Upper St. Clair would like to forget, the season overall was an unforgettable one for the Panthers, their standout senior and their now-retired coach.
“He tried to get loose last year, but we wouldn’t let him leave without a gold WPIAL,” Kalocay said. “That’s been our goal for the longest time. He’s been telling groups of girls for years how he wants to bring home a gold for Upper St. Clair, how Upper St. Clair deserves WPIAL gold. He’s had the skill to do it, and we’ve just fallen short. But me and him both weren’t leaving without one, so I made sure he knew that. We made a promise to each other that we would both work hard for each other, and we reached our goal.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.