Montour coach Bill Minear knew what his team was up against when it played host to Lincoln Park.
“They look like men,” he said. “I worked at Lincoln Park last year. I would see those guys in the lunchroom … and they grew.”
Friday, Lincoln Park handed Montour its lunch.
Lincoln Park, ranked No. 2 in WPIAL Class 4A, used its size and athleticism to break open a close game in the final quarter and take down No. 3 Montour, 61-52, in an early season showdown in Section 2.
There’s a reason so many Class 4A teams are looking up at Lincoln Park. There might not be a taller team in the entire WPIAL. Friday, the Leopards (2-2, 1-0), playing their section opener, put out a starting lineup that looked more like a college team. It included 6-foot-8 Montae Reddix, 6-7 Joe Scott, 6-5 Dakari Bradford and 6-3 L.A. Pratt.
That length presented problems to a Montour team that a week earlier had knocked off then-No. 1 Quaker Valley. Montour (2-1, 2-1) is by no means vertically challenged, but getting an open look inside the 3-point arc was not easy.
“They have length and size, too, but going to the basket, ours gave them a lot of problems,” Lincoln Park coach Mike Bariski said. “I saw them against Quaker Valley and Beaver. And when they got to the basket, there wasn’t that length back there to bother them. And with us, there was.”
Bradford, a senior, scored 19 points and Scott, a sophomore, added 16. Scott is new to the team. He attended Lincoln Park last year, but didn’t play basketball.
Lincoln Park contested Montour shots throughout, but senior sharpshooter Luke Persinger got some good looks from beyond the arc and made the Leopards pay. He scored a team-high 19 points, and his fifth 3-pointer of the game pulled Montour within 46-44 with 6:49 left.
“What did he have, eight 3s?,” Bariski asked. “Just amazing. He’s the one that kept them in the game.”
Lincoln Park then busted the game open when it went on a 9-0 run to take a 55-46 lead. Reddix used his big body to lay in a basket, Bradford buried a 3-pointer, Elias Bishop chipped in a layup, and Pratt drained a jumper. Montour finally ended the run on a Vason Stevenson basket with 3:28 to go. That ended a drought of 3:21 without a point.
Montour cut the Lincoln Park lead to 57-52 when Stevenson — he scored 14 points — made two free throws with 2:12 to go, but Bradford muscled his way up for 2 and Scott emphatically blocked a Montour shot off the bank board.
“That’s what we try to do. Use our size to our advantage and cause problems,” Bradford said. “See if they are adjusting and if they don’t, we win ball games.”
Another Lincoln Park player who stood out was freshman reserve point guard Brandin Cummings. He connected on two free throws and a step-back 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter, and Bariski put the ball in his hands in crunch time. Cummings is the younger brother of former Lincoln Park standout Nelly Cummings, a one-time Post-Gazette player of the year who now plays at Colgate.
Minear said his team will learn from the loss. The Spartans fell just short of the playoffs in Class 5A last season, but this group has a lot of promise. And they are young, as they start four juniors.
“This is the beginning of the process we’re going through to get where we want to be,” Minear said. “It was a good eye-opener for our guys because they’ve always been the most athletic team. Today they faced a team that was more athletic than they were and played with enough poise to win.”
Not only did Minear work at Lincoln Park, but he was an assistant to Bariski for two seasons before taking the Montour job in 2018. The two are good friends. Not often do you see a matchup of coaches who have won multiple WPIAL titles and a PIAA title. Bariski has won two WPIAL titles and a PIAA title at Lincoln Park. Minear captured three WPIAL titles and a PIAA championship at Sto-Rox.
Lincoln Park once again has the look of a WPIAL championship contender. The Leopards won back-to-back titles in 2018 and 2019 before losing to North Catholic in last season’s Class 3A final. The Leopards have since moved up to Class 4A. Their losses this season have come to highly-ranked teams in larger classes — 6A No. 1 Upper St. Clair and 5A No. 3 Chartiers Valley.
Said Bariski: “This was a giant win for us.”
Brad Everett: beverett@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BREAL412.
First Published: January 16, 2021, 4:08 a.m.