A-K Valley basketball notebook: Wins piling up for Highlands coach

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, January 25, 2018 | 11:44 PM

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It might seem a small occasion in a coach’s career to move above a .500 career record, as Highlands boys basketball coach Tyler Stoczynski did after the Golden Rams’ 87-68 win Tuesday over Franklin Regional.

Then again, consider where he started: 19 games below sea level.

Stoczynski, who came to Highlands in 2012 after two seasons as an assistant at his alma mater Gannon, lost his first 19 games as the coach of a very young Golden Rams team.

Star Micah Mason had graduated the previous season along with virtually the entire rest of the roster, and the Golden Rams finished with a 1-21 record in 2012-13, the lone victory coming over Valley.

Then the climb began. Highlands went 9-13 in 2013-14; 13-14, including a pair of WPIAL playoff victories in 2014-15; 23-6 in 2015-16, including a run to the WPIAL Class AAA championship game and PIAA quarterfinals; 12-11 last season; and 11-3 so far this season.

The win over Franklin Regional was the ninth in a row for Highlands (11-3, 5-1), avenged a loss to Franklin Regional from earlier this season, and moved the Golden Rams into a tie with the Panthers (11-4, 5-1) atop Section 3-5A.

Rather than reflect on the importance of the win for his team, Stoczynski instead looked ahead to Highlands’ next game Friday at Armstrong (6-10, 2-4).

“It’s something we’re not going to talk about,” Stoczynski said of the first-place tie. “We’re excited for practice on Thursday, and we’re going to go from there. That’s our focus at this point.”

Cavalier altitude

Perhaps one day Nick Ionadi can match Stoczynski’s over-.500 record. For now, the sixth-year Kiski Area girls coach is focusing on the continued growth of his team.

Before the season Ionadi pinpointed several areas of focus for the Cavaliers, including marked improvements in their scoring offense and defense.

On that end, some progress is showing: Kiski Area is averaging 39.6 points per game and allowing 44.2 after scoring 40.8 and yielding 51.8 last season.

The Cavaliers, who snapped a 26-game section losing streak by beating Plum in December, knocked off the Mustangs again Tuesday behind 16 points from Harley Holloway and 10 from Violeta Kenzevich.

Ending the section losing streak was another Ionadi goal, and the win Tuesday moved Kiski Area (6-11, 2-6) within a game of fourth-place Franklin Regional (8-8, 3-5) in the Section 4-5A playoff race. The Cavaliers last made the playoffs in 2012 and went 13-91 over the next five seasons. Their six wins this season match their most in a season since 2012-13.

Nerves of Beale

“Big Shot Ben” did it again.

Freeport senior Ben Beale, who hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to knock off Indiana last season, scored another game-winner Wednesday as his tip-in at the horn gave the Yellowjackets a 50-49 nonsection victory over Armstrong.

Trailing by one, Freeport corralled the rebound from a missed Armstrong free throw and drove up court. Point guard Jalen Brown took a pass at midcourt, cut into the lane and passed to Beale, who drove toward the basket. He missed his initial shot with a pair of Armstrong players defending but tipped the ball with his left hand after it came off the rim.

It went through the net as the buzzer sounded.

“Luckily I followed my shot and I didn’t know how much time was (left), so I grabbed my rebound and threw it back up,” said Beale, who scored 11 points in the win.

Game winner pt. 2 pic.twitter.com/6LoC86nOcb

— Benny Beale (@BenjaminBeale) January 25, 2018

Beale’s shot ensured Freeport (9-5) wouldn’t drop a second straight game; a 63-53 loss to Valley last week snapped the team’s six-game winning streak. The Yellowjackets play Friday night at, ironically enough, Indiana.

“This win was huge for us,” Beale said. “We needed to this get back on track and back into the flow of things. It would’ve been hard to play Friday against Indiana coming off a loss. This was a morale booster and everyone is ready to get back to section play and get this one Friday.”

Thrill of Victoria

Deer Lakes’ Victoria Keibler hit a big shot of her own Wednesday night.

The junior guard gathered an inbound pass, took a quick dribble and launched a left-handed shot from well beyond half court in the waning seconds of the third quarter of the Lancers’ nonsection game at East Allegheny.

Her shot was right on the money, going through the net as the buzzer sounded to cut East Allegheny’s lead to 50-39.

So this happened tonight pic.twitter.com/F7x4uH5DGu

— Victoria Keibler (@VKeib) January 25, 2018

“We were down by 14 and I had just told my teammates to hold the ball, but then I realized that the other team was just standing there,” Keibler said. “So I thought what the heck, might as well shoot it.

“Honestly (I) put no thought into it; I just got lucky, really. My first thought was that was a good throw, and then it banked in and my mouth just dropped. I couldn’t believe that I made it.”

Keibler scored a team-high 19 points for Deer Lakes in its 77-47 loss.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Deer Lakes, Freeport, Highlands, Kiski School