Tigers ready to challenge WPIAL titan Chartiers Valley
By ASHLEY CHASE
MVI Sports
McKeesport hasn’t won a WPIAL girls basketball championship since before all its current players were born.
Chartiers Valley has won three of the last four.
The No. 2 Colts and No. 7 Tigers will face off in the WPIAL quarterfinals at 6 p.m. today at Chartiers Valley in pursuit of that next title.
The sole WPIAL girls championship for McKeesport came in 1998, a 69-52 victory over North Allegheny. Women’s basketball hall of famer, two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time NCAA national champion and retired WNBA star Swin Cash posted a triple-double in that game, with 40 points, 21 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.
The Colts have won three titles with a few significant weapons in their arsenal – rosters loaded with Division I talent, a head coach with more than 500 career wins and the confidence that comes with producing a state-record 64-game winning streak, the longest basketball winning streak in PIAA history.
The programs have histories of basketball royalty, but the 2021 teams are very different, with one striking similarity.
Both teams are young.
Chartiers Valley (20-3) is the second seed in the WPIAL tournament because of the team that ended that 64-game win streak, No. 1 Trinity. While the Colts have plenty of postseason experience, there’s not a single senior on the roster.
But there’s a catch. They’re nearly all returning starters. These juniors aren’t exactly “young.”
Chartiers Valley’s usual starting lineup consists of five juniors – Perri Page, Aislin Malcolm, Hallie Cowan, Helene Cowan and Marian Turnbull. The Colts will not have Turnbull, the team’s third-leading scorer, because she transferred from a high school in Virginia and was ruled ineligible for the postseason by the WPIAL.
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