January 30, 2020

Gladiators rise up to hammer Serra Catholic

By Jeremy Sellew

By JEREMY TEPPER
MVI Sports
Roaring starts to games have become the norm for South Allegheny’s boys team.
Game in and game out, the Gladiators have overwhelmed their opponents with their depth, versatility, shooting and relentless defense.
On Wednesday, Serra Catholic got all of that and was buried for the rest of the game.
South Allegheny (17-1) came out blazing and didn’t look back, using a 26-7 first quarter to push it to an 81-54 non-section win over Serra Catholic (10-8, 8-2). Bryce Epps led the Gladiators with 24 points, while Omar Faulkner had 18. Josiah Pais had 16 points for Serra Catholic.
“We’re 18 games in and (quick starts) have been pretty much the story for us,” said South Allegheny coach Tony DiCenzo.
“It’s been typical for us to shoot the ball really well and it really opens the floor for us and makes it easier for Omar to get going when teams have to space out and try to slow down our shooting. That leaves him one on one.”
Faulkner said the team considers Serra Catholic a rival, and given it was a road game for the Gladiators, that motivated them even more to come out focused and start hot.
Epps concurred with DiCenzo that Faulkner’s presence down low was key in that avalanche of a first quarter, which started with a 16-2 run.
“We had a lot of energy, shared the ball really well and got the bigs involved first, and what pretty much won us this game is Omar just running the floor,” Epps said.
Serra Catholic coach Justin Walther said his team didn’t have the proper effort early on, which helped the rough beginning, along with South Allegheny’s talent and execution.
“We were down big and when you start making a shot here and a shot there, you start thinking you can score a bit,” Walther said. We didn’t believe we could score at all, but we went on that 12-3 run to end the first half.”

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.