MVISBL playoffs tip off tonight

By Jose Negron

jnegron@yourmvi.com

After an eventful 10-game regular season, it’s playoff time in the Mon Valley Independent Summer Basketball League.

Four teams from the boys and girls divisions will battle this week for the right to hoist the inaugural MVI-SBL championship trophy at Marx’s Court Time Sports Center in Elizabeth Township.

The girls division playoffs tip off tonight with top-seed AMD Industries (10-0) taking on No. 4 Lee Supply (4-6) in the 7 p.m. opener. No. 2 Dax Thomas State Farm will face No. 3 Monessen Florist at 8:15 p.m. 

AMD looks to defeat Lee Supply for the third time this season. The division’s lone unbeaten team defeated the girls in green, 52-34, on July 20 before earning a 57-35 win in the regular season finale Wednesday. 

Bria Rathway’s bunch enters the postseason as the unquestioned favorite to win the title, but that doesn’t mean her friend and former Belle Vernon Area teammate Kaitlyn Slagus doesn’t have aspirations to ruin AMD’s title hopes. 

Lee Supply will have a tough task as Thomas Jefferson’s Graci Fairman, one of the team’s leading scorers, missed both of last week’s games. She sat on the Lee Supply bench in a walking boot. 

If Fairman is unavailable, that puts some pressure on BVA’s Jenna Dawson and Woodland Hills’ Jasmyn Fisher to lead the way offensively. Not to mention they need to be a part of a strong defensive effort against an AMD team that can score in bunches with the likes of Trinity’s Kaylin Venick and Eden Williamson leading the way. Venick and Williamson finished the regular season as the No. 1 and No. 4 leading scorers in the league, respectively. 

AMD has proven capable of picking up the offense when necessary and playing stout defense when the offense is stumbling. With a championship berth on the line, I doubt that changes.