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Photo Credit: Will McBride

BOYS BASKETBALL

5A BOYS SEMIFINALS

Penn Hills 67, North Hills 51

Penn Hills’ (20-3) Lamire Redman connected on five three-pointers giving the North Hills (19-6) defense another thing to worry and Penn Hills defense continued to flex their muscles as they came away with the 67-51 win in the WPIAL Semifinals on Saturday afternoon.

Things were tight throughout the first quarter. In the second quarter, Penn Hills made the first move going on a 16-1 run. An alley-oop from Daemar Kelly to Jullian Dugger made the score 38-18 and Penn Hills had all the momentum going into the half. 

North Hills made a push in the second half cutting the deficit to 39-29 in the third quarter but Redman did most of his damage in the third quarter hitting three three-pointers and scoring 11 of Penn Hills’ 13 points in the quarter and Penn Hills got the lead back up to 49-33 heading into the final frame. Things stayed even in the fourth quarter and Penn Hills came away with the 67-51 win punching their ticket to the WPIAL Championship game.

Kelly and Redman each had 17 points for Penn Hills. Michai Olivier added 10 points. Royce Parham and Eric James each had 15 points for North Hills. Zach Pollaro netted 14 points.

Penn Hills advances to the WPIAL Championship game where they will take on Peters Township on Thursday at 9 pm at the Petersen Event Center. North Hills will face Gateway in the WPIAL third-place game for state tournament seeding purposes.

Peters Township 62, Gateway 55

Peters Township (22-3) did the little things right and was able to pull away in the second half for a 62-55 semifinal win over Gateway (17-6) on Saturday afternoon at Mt. Lebanon High School to get to their first WPIAL championship game since 2009.

Neither team could get any separation as we were tied 15-15 after a quarter of play and 28-28 at the half. The third quarter stayed competitive until Peters Township finished the quarter on a 7-0 run and gave themselves a 49-41 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Peters Township had the momentum to end the third quarter but Gateway got the momentum back to start the fourth quarter going on a 6-0 run of their own cutting the deficit to two points. The teams began trading threes more specifically Peters Township’s Jack Dunbar and Gateway’s Taili Thompson. It was 58-55 and Gateway had a chance to tie the game but a miss and a couple of big Peters Township rebounds down the stretch led them to a 62-55 victory.

Dunbar finished with 29 points for Peters Township. Jake Ziegler had 15 points and Brendan McCullough added 11. Thompson led Gateway with 17 points while MJ Stevenson netted 11 points.

Peters Township advances to the WPIAL Championship game where they will play Penn Hills on Thursday at 9 pm at the Petersen Events Center. Gateway will head to North Hills to play them in the WPIAL third-place game for state tournament seeding purposes.