A-K Valley WPIAL basketball preview playoff capsule for Thursday’s game

By: Doug Gulasy
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 | 4:15 PM

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Girls

Class 2A

Quarterfinals

No. 6 Leechburg (19-4) vs. No. 3 Chartiers-Houston (17-5)

6:30 p.m. Thursday at West Allegheny

On the air:TribHSSN.triblive.com

Winner plays: No. 2 OLSH (19-2) or No. 7 Brentwood (16-6)

Layup lines: Leechburg and Chartiers-Houston meet in the WPIAL quarterfinals for the second consecutive season. Chartiers-Houston won, 60-44, last season, pulling away in the fourth quarter with a 21-9 closing run. … This game pits two of the top players in WPIAL Class 2A: Leechburg’s Mikayla Lovelace, an IUP recruit, and Char-Houston’s Alexa Williamson, a Temple recruit. Both reached 2,000 career points earlier this season, with Lovelace eclipsing the milestone with a 37-point performance in Leechburg’s 75-60 first-round win over Frazier. … The Section 2-2A runner up, Leechburg boasts the highest-scoring offense in the classification (62.7 points per game). Lovelace averages 24.5 ppg. The Blue Devils start five seniors — Cam Davies, Makenzie Fello, Daesha Knight, Lovelace and Brittany Robilio. Robilio ranks second on the team in scoring and has more than 200 career 3-pointers. Leechburg is seeking its first WPIAL semifinal appearance. … Defending WPIAL champion Chartiers-Houston tied for the Section 1-2A championship with OLSH. The Bucs’ stingy defense allows just 33 ppg, a total Williamson — the WPIAL’s leading scorer at 31.8 ppg — nearly exceeds by herself. Chartiers-Houston outscored teams by more than 20 ppg.

—Doug Gulasy

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review Staff Writer. You can contact Doug at 412-388-5830, dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter .

Tags: Chartiers-Houston, Leechburg