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The Dribbler: WPIAL basketball champions must regroup in a hurry

Lake Fong/Post-Gazette

The Dribbler: WPIAL basketball champions must regroup in a hurry

The Drib­bler hopes to not be hung­over this week­end, and it has noth­ing to do with con­sum­ing too many bev­er­ages.

Have you heard of the “cham­pi­on­ship hang­over?” It’s when a team ex­pe­ri­ences the high of win­ning a dis­trict cham­pi­on­ship and then is slug­gish in its first game in the state tour­na­ment.

The Drib­bler gets it. Some­thing sim­i­lar af­flicted him about a de­cade ago. After cor­rectly pick­ing all the win­ners of the WPIAL cham­pi­on­ship games, he went out the fol­low­ing week and served his read­ers a goose egg. That’s right, he didn’t even pick one game right.

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That ex­plains why The Drib­bler is slightly con­cerned about how this week­end might turn out, not only for him, but for all of the WPIAL cham­pi­ons. The Drib­bler went a solid 7-2 in his cham­pi­on­ship picks last week. Chances are he will be on top of his game this week, but no mat­ter how much wa­ter he drinks or how much greasy food he eats, a hang­over is al­ways a pos­si­bil­ity.

Butler's standout freshman point guard Ethan Morton drives and kicks out in a game against North Hills earlier this season.
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The Drib­bler’s cham­pi­on­ship ef­fort im­proved his sea­son record to 67-27 (.712).

Here are his thoughts on this week­end’s top PIAA first-round games:

Boys

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Hamp­ton vs. Mars, 6 p.m. Fri­day at North Al­le­gheny — If the WPIAL held a 3-point shoot­ing con­test, who would win? The Drib­bler might put his money on Hamp­ton’s An­tonio Ionadi. Get­ting the ball to this A.I. is the per­fect an­swer when Hamp­ton needs a big bucket. He has helped the Tal­bots win two of three against ri­val Mars this sea­son. Ionadi will get his points in this one, but Mars will even the sea­son se­ries be­hind the play of its star guard, Robby Car­mody. Win­ner: Mars.

All­derd­ice vs. North Hills, 4 p.m. Satur­day at Obama — The Dice just never stops roll­ing. Five start­ers grad­u­ate from a team that went to the state fi­nal? No big deal. This is a scrappy group, def­i­nitely not the Dunk City crew of the past few years. Few ex­pected the Dragons to win an­other City League ti­tle and make it back to the PIAA play­offs. How­ever, this is a game where All­derd­ice’s youth will be ex­posed. Nick Smith and his fel­low se­niors move on. Win­ner: North Hills.

Pine-Rich­land vs. Latrobe, 6 p.m. Satur­day at Bald­win — The pre­vi­ous time these teams met, Pine-Rich­land slipped past Latrobe by two points in last year’s WPIAL semi­fi­nals. Pine-Rich­land’s An­drew Krist­o­fic, then a fresh­man, scored the win­ning points off a tip-in and free throw in the clos­ing sec­onds of the sec­ond over­time. Latrobe’s Austin But­ler might score 35 points, but WPIAL 6A cham­pion Pine-Rich­land is like but­ter right now … it’s on a roll. Win­ner: Pine-Rich­land.

Beaver Falls vs. Mar­tins­burg Cen­tral, 5:30 p.m Satur­day at Holl­i­days­burg — Can the vaunted Beaver Falls de­fense keep Mar­tins­burg Cen­tral’s star run­ning back in check? Wait, wrong sport. These schools played in the PIAA 2A foot­ball semi­fi­nals in the fall. Beaver Falls edged the Dragons, 14-7, be­fore go­ing on to win the ti­tle in Her­shey. Speak­ing of sweets, this is “Sweet 16” for Beaver Falls, which is mak­ing its 16th con­sec­u­tive PIAA play­off ap­pear­ance. Win­ner: Beaver Falls.

Bethel Park players celebrate after defeating Penn Hills in the WPIAL Class 6A semifinal game Feb. 28 at North Allegheny.
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Girls

Bethel Park vs. Penn Hills, 7:30 p.m. Fri­day at North Al­le­gheny — Like the Hamp­ton-Mars boys game, this is a re­match of a WPIAL 6A semi­fi­nal played just 10 days ago. It was an­other stop on Bethel Park’s up­set tour. After up­set­ting No. 2 Pine-Rich­land in the quar­ter­fi­nals, No. 7 Bethel Park stunned No. 3 Penn Hills to reach the cham­pi­on­ship game. Bethel Park’s de­fense gave Penn Hills fits that game. That de­fense will be the dif­fer­ence yet again. Win­ner: Bethel Park.

South Park vs. Villa Maria, 6 p.m. Fri­day at Edin­boro Univer­sity — When South Park and Villa Maria last met, a berth in the PIAA 3A cham­pi­on­ship was on the line. That was just last sea­son, a game in which Villa Maria, a pow­er­house out of Dis­trict 10, handed South Park a 19-point loss. Villa Maria is aw­fully tough to score on — it held Mer­cy­hurst Prep to 24 points in the dis­trict cham­pi­on­ship. The Vic­tors will grab an­other, umm, vic­tory. Win­ner: Villa Maria.

Obama Acad­emy vs. South Fay­ette, 4 p.m. Satur­day at All­derd­ice — Obama has not won a PIAA play­off game since, well, it never has. This is a vet­eran team, though, one that has won four con­sec­u­tive City League ti­tles and fea­tures Cin­cin­nati re­cruit Mi­cha­ela Porter. The Eagles lost in the first round of the PIAA tour­na­ment each of the past three sea­sons. South Fay­ette might have lost in the WPIAL 5A quar­ter­fi­nals, but this is still a very good team. Win­ner: South Fay­ette.

East Al­le­gheny vs. Ty­rone, 4 p.m. Satur­day at Al­toona — East Al­le­gheny is in a po­si­tion it hasn’t been in all sea­son. The Wild­cats are com­ing off a loss. A per­fect sea­son ended their pre­vi­ous time out when they were ousted from the WPIAL 3A semi­fi­nals by one point against Ne­shan­nock. In­stead of play­ing for a cham­pi­on­ship and stay­ing close to home for a first-round PIAA game, the Wild­cats must make a two-hour drive to try to get their mojo back. Win­ner: East Al­le­gheny.

First Published: March 10, 2017, 5:00 a.m.

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