Shaler girls grab hard-earned playoff spot in season to remember

By: Josh Rizzo
Sunday, February 19, 2023 | 11:01 AM

Awards from youth basketball camps aren’t items that Hanna DeJidas will likely be submitting with college applications. But the junior guard on the Shaler girls basketball team likely won’t forget winning them either.

The foundation for the Titans program was laid with tokens of appreciation from varsity coach Cornelious Nesbit.

DeJidas, whose Ms. MVP award is stowed away in a scrapbook her mom has in the house, helped become one of the key cogs as Shaler finished with a winning record for the first time since the 2014-15 season and earned a spot in the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs.

‘The focus was to make the playoffs,” DeJidas said. “We’ve thought that this was going to be the year we could make it back with how skilled everyone is.”

It’s also the first time the Titans have earned their way into the district playoffs since the 2017-18 season. Shaler entered the WPIAL tournament during the 2020-21 season when the league made it an open-entry format due to the scheduling difficulties caused by the covid pandemic.

Shaler was scheduled to play former section rival Penn-Trafford in the first round of the playoffs Feb. 21, but the results of that game were too late for this edition.

For Nesbit, it was an exciting moment seeing some players he can remember back to youth camps playing on the varsity roster. He remembers Bayleigh Perez, Haley Kostorick, Bella Battaglia and DeJidas all winning various awards.

Nesbit, who also coached at Gateway for eight seasons, believes in building from the ground up.

He never really considered going anywhere else.

“I want to be here for the long haul,” Nesbit said. “I like being here and helping kids achieve their dreams and goals, whatever they are, whether they want to play at the next level or just have a nice high school career. I don’t like a lot of change. I was at Gateway for eight years, and I’ve been here for eight years now.”

The Titans, who finished the regular season 16-6 overall and 7-5 in section, didn’t back into the playoffs.

Shaler won six of its last seven games, with the only loss being a three-point decision to Mars, to finish in a tie for third place. The Titans had to beat Fox Chapel in the season finale, which Shaler did 40-36, to find a way to get into the playoffs.

Defense has been important for Shaler’s turnaround. The Titans are limiting their opponents to 37.8 points per game, which was the second-lowest in the section behind Armstrong.

DeJidas said a practice training tool helped make things easier for Shaler to work together.

“Our defense is our strongest component,” DeJidas said. “We had bungee cords that tied us together doing the shell drill in the preseason. When one of us moved, we all had to move. That helped translate to the live game.”

Shaler was able to adjust throughout the season and earned a chance to make a splash in the postseason. The ninth-seeded Titans all have a deep history together. That allows Shaler to work together to make major improvements.

“I think one of the things we were able to do as a coaching staff was to make adjustments and put the kids in better situations,” Nesbit said. “Early in the season, we were able to figure out what kids played well together on the floor and adjusted and that’s when we saw a change in us.”

Tags: Shaler