Quaker Valley coach Mike Mastroianni liked his team’s focus in practices the past few days. And after Tuesday night, the Quakers’ vision is still perfect.
Quaker Valley ran its perfect record to 10-0 with an easy 70-41 victory against visiting Ambridge in a big WPIAL Class 4A Section 2 game.
The winning margin might be considered a little surprising, considering these were the Post-Gazette’s top two ranked teams in 4A. No. 1 Quaker Valley is 6-0 in section. No. 2-ranked Ambridge is 9-3 overall, 5-1 in section.
“Considering the opponent and the records in the section, I thought this was one of our better games,” Mastroianni said. “I thought it was our best game with our focus. We were in a really good place in practices. We have some older guys on our team who have played a lot of games. I thought we played older and that was the difference.”
Quaker Valley turned the game in the second quarter when they outscored Ambridge, 23-2. The Quakers led by only 14-12 after the first quarter. Defense was a key for Quaker Valley. Ambridge junior guard Aaron Hilzendeger hit four 3-pointers in the first quarter, but had only six points the rest of the way to finish with 18.
“We changed things up and trapped more in the second quarter,” Mastroianni said. “We turned them over quite a bit, got some run-outs and extra possessions..”
Senior guard Coletrane Washington led Quaker Valley with 28 and junior forward Ryan Stowers added 17.
More top boys games
• Quaker Valley is the lone undefeated team in the WPIAL after Penn Hills (14-1, 6-1) lost for the first time, dropping an 80-66 decision to host Latrobe (10-4, 5-2) in Class 6A Section 3. Penn Hills led by 39-36 at halftime, but Latrobe took a 61-49 advantage after three quarters. Bryce Butler scored 27 for Latrobe.
• Austin Ryan made a 3-pointer at the buzzer and Moon (11-1, 4-1), No. 2 in 5A, survived an upset bid with a 63-62 Section 2 victory against Montour (4-7, 1-4).
• New Castle (9-4, 4-2), No. 3 in 4A, needed overtime to knock off upstart Beaver Falls, 54-51, in Section 2. Beaver Falls came in with a 2-9 record. Marcus Hooker had 17 points and 18 rebounds for New Castle.
• Only four days after a bad shooting performance against Penn Hills, Woodland Hills (11-2, 6-1) bounced back with a terrific shooting performance that led the Wolverines to an 88-62 victory against Penn-Trafford (6-9, 3-4) in 6A Section 3. Woodland Hills shot 62 percent (36 of 58) from the field, including 73 percent (8 of 11) from 3-point range.
Star of the night
• Leechburg senior Mikalya Lovelace broke her school record when she poured in 44 points as the Blue Devils (10-2, 6-1) rolled to a 70-60 victory against Brentwood (10-4, 5-2) in Class 2A Section 2. Lovelace also pulled down 21 rebounds in the contest. She held the old school record for scoring with 43.
• Fox Chapel’s Dom McGriff had his seventh double-double of the season when he scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead the Foxes (10-4, 4-3) to a 62-44 victory against Plum (5-9, 0-7) in 6A Section 3.
Milestone
• Pine-Richland coach Jeff Ackermann got his 300th career win as Pine-Richland (10-3, 5-1) defeated Shaler, 77-51, in 6A Section 1. Ackermann is in his fourth year at Pine-Richland after 13 seasons at Moon. His record is 300-134. Mt. Lebanon coach Joe David got his 300th win on Saturday.
First Published: January 17, 2018, 4:06 a.m.
