All-time WPIAL girls basketball championship games No. 2: 2016 Norwin rallies past NA for 2nd straight title

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, February 26, 2018 | 5:57 PM

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The TribLive High School Sports Network will be counting down the Top 10 boys and girls WPIAL basketball championship games leading up to the 2018 title games March 1-3 at the Petersen Events Center.

TRIBHSSN is the exclusive audio and video home for all 12 WPIAL championship games, which will be broadcasted and video streamed live at TribHSSN.triblive.com.

Here is the ninth installment of a 10-part series ranking the top WPIAL girls basketball championship games in district history.

No. 2: 2016 — WPIAL Class 4A finals: Norwin 63, North Allegheny 57 (OT)

In 2015, Norwin captured the school's first WPIAL girls basketball championship with a 20-point victory over Penn Hills. The Knights followed up that golden performance with an undefeated regular season and returned to the finals as the top seed in Quad-A. North Allegheny was the No. 2 seed and entered the title game with a 22-3 record, including a 68-59 loss to the Knights in December, their only loss to a district team.

Title games had not been kind to the North Allegheny program since winning district gold in 1972. NA lost in the WPIAL Quad-A championship game in 1991, 1992, 1997, 1998 and 1999.

But all those title game failures seemed like a soon-to-be-forgotten footnote when the Tigers connected on 7 of 15 behind the 3-point line in building up a 13-point lead after two quarters. As good as the NA offense was, the defense was even better as it kept Norwin senior Pitt recruit Alayna Gribble in check; she was held to four points and the Knights were down 31-18 at the half.

Norwin picked up its offense in the third quarter, but North Allegheny was still scoring in a back-and-forth stanza that ended with the Tigers up 49-36.

But the fourth quarter changed dramatically. The Knights kept coming in droves while the Tigers lost their offensive edge. Gribble and teammate Dominique Petach were unstoppable in the fourth quarter as Norwin outscored North Allegheny, 19-6. Petach finally tied the game 55-55 with just over two minutes remaining in regulation, but those would be the final points of the fourth quarter as the jubilant defending champs and a stunned challenger prepared for overtime.

Norwin senior Taylor Sabol connected on a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:32 left in overtime to give the Knights the lead for good.

After scoring only four points in the first half, Gribble led the Norwin comeback and ended up with 22 points, while Petach added 13 and Jenna Cole chipped in 11 points. Hailey Zeise led North Allegheny with 15 points while Taylor Lake scored 12 points and added 11 rebounds.

Don Rebel is a TribLive High School Sports Network broadcaster and staff writer. Reach him at drebel@tribweb.com.

Tags: North Allegheny, Norwin