Deer Lakes dethrones OLSH to win 1st WPIAL basketball championship

By: Chris Harlan
Friday, March 3, 2023 | 6:40 PM

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The Deer Lakes boys made basketball history twice this winter, and each time they snapped an Our Lady of the Sacred Heart streak.

This time, the Lancers ended OLSH’s four-year reign as a WPIAL champion. Senior guard Bryce Robson made a go-ahead layup with about 70 seconds left and No. 5 Deer Lakes held on to defeat No. 6 OLSH, 61-60, Friday night in the Class 3A championship at Pitt’s Petersen Events Center.

OLSH saw two last-second shots miss, sparking a long-awaited celebration for Deer Lakes, making its first appearance in the WPIAL finals.

“It’s still hitting me,” said Lancers coach Albie Fletcher, a 1993 Deer Lakes graduate and first-year head coach.

A school district resident, Fletcher said he’d coached most of this season’s roster at some point since grade school. It was back then, the players said, that they starting thinking about someday winning a WPIAL title together.

“Probably back in sixth grade,” said guard Michael Butler, one of four senior starters. “We’ve played together since then.”

The win came about six weeks after Deer Lakes snapped OLSH’s state-record winning streak at 74 games.

Deer Lakes won in late December by 15 points, but this championship rematch came down to OLSH’s last possession in the final 6.3 seconds. A baseline runner by OLSH’s Dorrien Tate missed, and a put-back by teammate Dereon Greer bounced off the rim as time expired.

The WPIAL playoff loss was OLSH’s first since 2018.

But much had changed for OLSH this winter. The Chargers were trying to match Midland as the only boys teams to win five straight WPIAL championship, but were competing in a higher classification with a new-look lineup.

“Early in the year we were certainly a work in progress,” OLSH coach Mike Rodriguez said. “If you’d told me at the beginning of the year that we’d be back in this game with a new team in 3A, I don’t know if I would have believed it. We overachieved as the season went on.”

Robson led Deer Lakes (18-8) with 18 points, Billy Schaeffer had 11 and Wayne Love added 10. Rocco Spadafora scored 18 points for OLSH (19-6), BJ Vaughn had 14 and Bryson Kirschner added 10.

Robson’s biggest points were his last two. Clinging to a one-point lead coming out of a timeout, OLSH switched to a man-to-man defense and Deer Lakes responded.

“We were licking our chops when they went man,” Fletcher said. “I was grinning ear to ear because they played their zone very well today. We think we’re a very good team against man-to-man. We were very excited.”

The first option in Deer Lakes’ set was Nate Litrun, but he was guarded, so the Lancers continued on until Robson sprung free. His driving layup gave them the lead.

“I saw the lane clear up and I knew what I had to do,” Robson said. “I had to take advantage.”

In a one-point loss, Rodriguez pointed to his team’s free throw shooting. OLSH went 4 for 9 from the foul line. Deer Lakes made 8 of 9.

Fletcher said the late-December win over OLSH was a confidence boost for his Deer Lakes team. That took away some of the worry about a championship newcomer facing a four-time reigning champion.

“When I first got the job, we put together one of the toughest schedules around,” Fletcher said. “These guys all kind of looked at me … but we wanted to be battle-tested.”

Watch an archived video stream broadcast of this game on Trib HSSN.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Deer Lakes, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart