Southmoreland advances to second round of WPIAL basketball playoffs

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Keera Frye in Sports // 0 Comments

After a “flat” first half, Southmoreland’s boys basketball team was able to end the fourth quarter of their first round playoff game with a 51-51 tie on Saturday.

Southmoreland basketball team and cheerleaders after win over Avonworth

“With the way we played in that fourth quarter,” said senior point guard Zak Leighty, “I knew we could pull ahead to win in overtime.”

And they did. Southmoreland triumphed over Avonworth with a 64-55 victory in overtime. They face Shady Side Academy Thursday at 8 p.m. at Gateway High School in a game that will send the winner to the WPIAL semi-finals.

“I was very confident in our team going into the game,” said senior Tommy Pisula. “I knew we were the better team, but I knew it wouldn’t be an easy game.”

At the end of the first half, Southmoreland was down by 8 points, but they didn’t let their slow start get them down.

“I knew we had come back from bigger deficits to win before,” said Leighty. “And we all knew that we would do whatever it took to win the game. We just didn’t have a strong start.”

Southmoreland did have a strong start to the second half however and were leading by 3 at the end of the third quarter. The boys credited their success in the second half to simply “playing like we know how to.”

Pisula got a key steal with a minute left in the game and tied the score at 51 with a layup. Southmoreland outscored Avonworth 13-4 in overtime to clinch the victory.