Bethel Park basketball player Liv Westphal had a Zoom video conference scheduled for Sunday with the Duquesne University women’s coaching staff. Westphal requested the conference to be moved up three days.
She had news to share and didn’t want to wait.
Westphal, one of the top basketball players in the WPIAL class of 2021, made a verbal commitment to Duquesne on Thursday night. Her other finalists were Toledo, George Washington, Miami (Ohio) and Wichita State.
“I moved up the Zoom call because I wanted to commit,” Westphal said. “If I would’ve somehow lost the Duquesne offer, I would’ve been devastated. Coach (Dan) Burt told me a while ago that there were only one or two scholarships left. Seeing all these players committing lately, I was worried someone might commit before me. Duquesne is where I wanted to go and I didn’t want to wait.”
Westphal is a 5-foot-9 junior shooting guard who averaged 15.2 points. 3.5 assists and 2.4 steals per game this past season. She also had 51 3-pointers for a Bethel Park team that made it to the WPIAL Class 6A championship game. She was a Post-Gazette all-WPIAL Class 6A selection and also second-team all-state.
Westphal said she originally was going to wait until AAU basketball was over this summer before making a decision, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed her thinking. It’s unlikely AAU basketball will be played this summer.
“I was planning on taking some more college visits this summer,” Westphal said. “But George Washington, I couldn’t go there until July at the earliest. Other colleges aren’t open. But that doesn’t matter because I’m just really excited to commit now.”
Duquesne actually offered Westphal a scholarship three years ago, the summer before her freshman year.
“Their whole coaching staff is what me want to go there the most,” Westphal said. “I’ve had such a good connection with them since eighth grade. Most colleges offered me and lost communication through the years. They stayed with me.”
Westphal’s choice of Duquesne is another indication of how Burt is recruiting hard in the WPIAL. Chartiers Valley’s Megan McConnell and North Catholic’s Tess Myers are WPIAL players from the class of 2020 who have signed with Duquesne. Burt also has scholarship offers out to a few other WPIAL players.
“I’ve been playing AAU basketball with Megan McConnell since fifth grade,” Westphal said. “She’s always been pushing for me to go to Duquesne. I called her and told her I was committing. She was crying tears of joy.”
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
First Published: May 1, 2020, 8:03 p.m.