Any time a team graduates four senior starters after winning a WPIAL championship like Beaver did last year, repeating as champion is going to be a very difficult task.
Not only did the Bobcats lose four starters — they only returned one player with any meaningful varsity experience from last year’s team that went undefeated in the regular season and came one point away from reaching the state semifinals. After stumbling to a 1-2 start this season, some may have wondered if Beaver would even make it back to the playoffs, let alone compete for another title.
Since then, the Bobcats (16-5) have answered their critics and silenced their doubters to the tune of 15 wins in their last 18 games, with two of those losses coming against undefeated top seed Blackhawk. That was enough to earn Beaver a No. 4 seed for the Class 4A playoffs, which the team began with a 46-28 first-round win vs. Freeport on Tuesday night.
Turns out, when your only returning starter is one of the WPIAL’s best athletes in recent memory, you still have a chance to do something special.
“We were a little bit panicky as well after we lost those two games,” said Beaver coach Greg Huston. “It was funny, because I had told Payton [List] all preseason, ‘Hey, you’ve got to be patient with this group. Let them grow, let them learn. That’s expected. Just let them get through it.’ We lost those two games, and I was freaking out. And Payton came to me and was like, ‘Coach, you have to be patient.’ We kind of were laughing about that.
“I give her a lot of credit, because I was starting to get a little bit antsy, too, and being the leader she is, she got everybody calmed down.”
Payton List is the Post-Gazette’s reigning softball player of the year who will play college softball at Virginia Tech as both a pitcher and hitter. Of course, she also dabbles in volleyball in the fall — she was named first-team all-state this season — and basketball in the winter. List was an all-section pick as a junior after averaging 16.2 points per game to help the Bobcats win a WPIAL title, but she has transformed into a completely different player this year.
“Dynamic is a great word to describe her. She can just do so many things,” Huston said. “Everything she does, she does it so well. She’s a combination of size, speed and athleticism. We can put her in the post and she can dominate down there, and we can put her at point guard and run offenses through her from that spot, too.
“There’s not many kids who can score 10 points in the post in the first half and then come out and score 15 points as a point guard in the second half.”
List ranked fifth in the WPIAL and tops in Class 4A during the regular season with an average of 23.2 points per game, and she’s doing it in a variety of ways. A 6-foot guard with the ability to play both inside and outside, List has taken over as Beaver’s unquestioned leader and go-to scorer whenever the team needs a bucket.
Not bad for someone who only plays basketball to stay in shape during her “offseason.”
“I don’t put nearly as much time into them as I do softball, but still, when I’m in those seasons, that’s my sport and I focus on that,” List said. “Once I get to college, it’s going to be strictly softball. I didn’t want to bore myself with just softball. I also don’t know how good I would be with just sitting around and having a bunch of free time.”
Although she has already helped raise a WPIAL championship banner at the school in both basketball and softball — not to mention a PIAA title in softball as well — List and her teammates still have unfinished business on the basketball court this season.
The way last season ended in a 29-28 PIAA quarterfinal defeat vs. Villa Maria Academy left a sour taste behind, and although they still have a long way to go, the Bobcats believe they have what it takes to make another deep run in both the WPIAL and state playoffs this year.
“Right now, I’m on basketball,” List said. “It’s one game at a time for me. I’m just trying to build up the confidence in my teammates because I know they can do it and do the job well.”
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
One of the most debated decisions made this year by the WPIAL basketball pairings committee was who should receive the No. 1 seed in the Class 2A girls bracket.
According to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart coach Don Eckerle, the committee got it right this time.
“I can’t say I was surprised. I had a nice feeling about it,” Eckerle said. “I felt like we got the recognition we should have gotten, because we had a great stretch run.”
The Chargers started the season only 4-4, which would generally disqualify most teams from even thinking about earning a No. 1 seed come playoff time. But OLSH rebounded to win 14 games in a row entering the playoffs — and it’s not just that they’re winning, it’s who they’ve beaten.
The momentum really started to build when the Chargers went on the road and defeated three-time defending WPIAL Class 1A champion Rochester in its own building, 56-49. Three games later, they beat defending WPIAL Class 2A champion Neshannock, 53-39, to split the season series and earn a share of the section title.
“I feel like that confidence factor really kicked in after the Neshannock game,” Eckerle said. “We played a really good game against them. I felt like they came away knowing, ‘Hey, we’re as good as we thought we could be.’ Waiting to see what our seeding would be, that was just the cherry on top as we finally got recognized for the team who we are.”
Only three years removed from winning a WPIAL title in 2019, this group is loaded with plenty of big-game experience, especially the seniors. The Chargers generally use eight to 10 players in their rotation on a given night, and Eckerle emphasizes sharing the ball as part of a balanced attack rather than featuring any one or two players as the focal point of the offense.
Still, it’s nice to have players he can turn to when the team desperately needs a big shot, and senior guard Emily Schuck and junior point guard Kyleigh Nagy both fit the bill, each averaging about 12 points per game.
“Emily would be looked upon as our senior leader for this year,” Eckerle said. “When we won the WPIAL championship when she was a freshman, she was a big contributor at the end of the season.”
With both the boys and girls teams at OLSH earning No. 1 seeds for the Class 2A playoffs, Eckerle hopes the teams can turn the same trick they pulled off in 2019, when both went all the way to Petersen Events Center and won WPIAL titles. Of course, the Chargers’ boys team has since extended its streak to three consecutive WPIAL titles and counting, so Eckerle and the girls have some work to do to catch up.
“We’ve been pretty good, too,” Eckerle said. “I can’t say that I’m looking like we’ve got the target on our back. I think we’ve still got a chip on our shoulder. I don’t see any wavering because we’re the No. 1 team.
“We’re not an overconfident team, but we are a team that believes in themselves.”
Steve Rotstein: srotstein@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SteveRotstein.
First Published: February 24, 2022, 10:30 a.m.
