A-K Valley basketball notebook: Several boys, girls teams ride momentum into ’19

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, January 3, 2019 | 10:48 PM

The calendar flipped from 2018 to ‘19 this week, but some basketball teams around the Alle-Kiski Valley are hoping they can carry their recent success into the new year.

Boys teams at Apollo-Ridge, Freeport, Highlands, Knoch and St. Joseph and girls teams at Apollo-Ridge and Freeport closed December with winning streaks of at least three games.

At seven games entering Thursday, Freeport’s girls team held the longest streak. The Class 4A No. 4 Yellowjackets (7-2, 3-1), however, saw their streak come to an end at the hands of No. 1 North Catholic in a pivotal Section 1-4A game Thursday night. The Trojans defeated Freeport, 75-63.

Apollo-Ridge holds the longest streak among boys teams, at five games, entering Friday’s meeting with Summit Academy. What makes the Vikings’ hot streak particularly notable is it came after they lost their first five games.

The five victories in a row also marks Apollo-Ridge’s longest streak since 2014-15, the last time the program qualified for the WPIAL playoffs.

Jolly holiday

As the song goes, there’s no place like home for the holidays, and a few teams proved that last week.

The Apollo-Ridge boys and girls, the Highlands boys and the St. Joseph boys claimed titles in the holiday tournaments they hosted.

Apollo-Ridge, which hosts the Apollo Trust Holiday Classic annually, swept the boys and girls championships in the same year for the first time since 2014-15. Highlands won its tournament for a second consecutive season, and St. Joseph claimed its championship for the second time in three years.

A couple other teams technically didn’t win host tournaments but had successful holidays at home anyway: Freeport’s boys tournament was a round-robin, but the Yellowjackets won both games there. So, too, did Knoch, but the Knights and Freeport didn’t play because they are in the same section.

Fox Chapel’s girls team, meanwhile, won the Peter Sauer Memorial Tournament at Shady Side Academy, just a few miles from the Foxes’ campus.

Swarm’s coming

The Freeport boys had some questions entering the season, with the need to replace three starters after a second consecutive WPIAL playoff trip.

But the Yellowjackets are showing they might have the answers early on.

Freeport sits in a three-way tie atop Section 1-4A entering Friday’s big section game at No. 4 Highlands (5-2, 1-0). The Yellowjackets’ two losses came to two of the top teams in the WPIAL: Class 5A No. 1 Mars and Class 4A No. 2 New Castle.

Part of the reason for Freeport’s continued success is stability. While technically the Yellowjackets are breaking in a new coach, in reality, Wayne Greiser just moved one spot up the bench from top assistant to coach, with Mike Beale moving one spot down from coach to assistant.

Returning starters Jalen Brown and Aiden Skradski are leading the way for the Yellowjackets. Brown, a three-year starter at point guard, is taking on a bigger scoring role and converted the last-second layup to give his team a win over Kiski Area in their holiday tournament last week. Skradski hit six 3-pointers and scored 20 points in the 63-62 win.

Mills hall

Highlands will induct one of the top players into its boys basketball hall of fame during Friday’s game against Freeport.

Bobby Mills, a 1986 graduate and the top player on the Golden Rams’ section title team as a senior, will become the latest member of the school’s hall of fame.

That 1985-86 team, coached by Tom Myers, ended a 14-year drought without a section title.

Mills went on to star at Division I Maryland-Baltimore County, worked in the oil and equity business after graduation and now is part of the ownership group of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the New York Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.