Alle-Kiski girls basketball teams find early success

By: HSSN Staff
Wednesday, December 13, 2017 | 11:21 PM

Freeport girls basketball coach Fred Soilis said he saw some good things from his team despite season-opening tournament losses to South Fayette and Keystone Oaks, teams that won 20 games last year and played in the PIAA playoffs.

They were the early-season tests he wanted for his team, itself a state-tournament qualifier last year after making it to the WPIAL quarterfinals in Class 4A.

“We're starting to get our legs,” Solis said. “A lot of the girls played a fall sport, and they've been getting back into basketball shape.”

Area teams have had a chance to assess themselves at both ends of the court so far in game action after setting the table with numerous practices and scrimmages.

“It's still early for a lot of teams,” Soilis said. “Some have new coaches and installed new systems, and others might have lost a lot from last year and there are a lot of new (players) in the lineup. We only lost one from last year, but we still have things to smooth out.”

Freeport's defense turned the tide and set the tempo early in Monday's nonsection game with Apollo-Ridge.

The Yellowjackets forced seven turnovers and converted on the offensive end to the tune of a 16-0 lead in a 60-42 victory.

“I like what I've seen from the defense,” Soilis said. “We've got some workhorses who can run the court. Forcing turnovers creates good offensive opportunities.”

Apollo-Ridge coach Jim Callipare saw Freeport do Monday what his defense was able to do last weekend at the Springdale tournament. The Vikings forced several turnovers and gave up an average of only 20 points in wins over Springdale and Ellwood City.

“Like a lot of teams, we try to balance our offense and defense in practice,” Callipare said.

“Defense, in games, feeds the offense and vice versa. We struggled early on with turnovers on offense against Freeport, and they took advantage.”

St. Joseph's offense and defense were on point at its own tip-off tournament. It scored the first 11 points of the game against Highlands en route to a 71-30 victory.

The Spartans defense was able to limit a Golden Rams team making a new start after losing several key players, including two 1,000-point scorers.

“We're playing pretty good on offense based on our expectations going in,” said St. Joseph coach Sue Ackerman, whose team is 2-1 and averaging 62.3 points heading into a nonsection clash Thursday with 3-0 Sewickley Academy .

“We're able to score in many different ways with layups, inside twos, mid-range twos and shots from the outside. We've had that in all three games so far. We focused on that more coming into the season. That's good to see moving forward.”

At the same time, the Spartans have yielded 52.3 points a contest.

“We can work on defense more,” Ackerman said. “Our focus is anticipating on defense and having the guts to go for the steal. No more hesitation this year.”

Deer Lakes coach Dave Petruska said his offense and defense will be tested Thursday in the Section 1-4A opener against defending WPIAL champion Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic (2-0).

He said his defense did well to bring pressure in low-scoring losses to 5A Armstrong (4-0) and 6A Butler at last weekend's Armstrong tournament. He also saw unselfishness in sharing the ball and finding the open player, something he said all teams hope to achieve as they establish an early-season offensive identity.

Petruska said preseason practices — working on different offense and defense sets, and even scrimmages — can only go so far.

“Nothing beats actual game action to test a team,” Petruska said.

Leechburg is 2-1 as it hopes to build on last season's first-ever WPIAL and PIAA playoff victories. The Blue Devils, who visit Riverview (2-0) in their Section 2-2A opener Thursday, own a 58-47 win over 5A Kiski Area, but Blue Devils coach Joel Ceraso said they struggled shooting the ball in a 71-40 loss to 2016-17 PIAA 3A semifinalist West Shamokin.

“Every team hopes to avoid complacency in their offense after working on it so much in the offseason and the preseason, whether it's getting sloppy with picks or getting lazy while making a cut,” Ceraso said.

“But the girls have come out with a lot of energy, and that can translate to solid defense that then creates easy buckets. We have to play with that energy each game.”

Thursday games include section openers Valley (1-2) at Freeport (1-2), Carlynton (0-2) at Apollo-Ridge (2-1), Plum (0-3) at Hampton (1-1), Springdale (0-3) at Sto-Rox (3-0) and Highlands (0-3) at Burrell (1-2).

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Mlove_Trib.

Tags: Apollo-Ridge, Freeport, Leechburg, St. Joseph