Deer Lakes honors 1985 state champ girls basketball team
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Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | 5:56 PM
Forty years have passed since Deer Lakes brought home the Alle-Kiski Valley’s first and only PIAA girls basketball championship.
The Lancers defeated Palmyra from District 3 for the championship in comeback fashion 45-43 on March 29, 1985.
Deer Lakes rolled through an undefeated postseason to capture WPIAL and state gold.
Memories of that run and that season overall came flooding back Saturday evening when players and coaches from that team came together to mark the milestone anniversary.
“It was incredible,” Shawn Rearick McGuire said of the gathering, which included a recognition ceremony prior to the current Deer Lakes girls team’s game against Riverview on the same court as many of the special moments all those years ago.
“It felt like I was stepping back in time. It felt good walking on the court after all these years. We were reliving all of those great memories. It was special to see everyone after so many years.”
The current Lancers players wore green tube socks similar to what the 1985 team members wore, and when Deer Lakes came out for warm-ups, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” played over the loudspeaker, another callback to what played when the champion Lancers took the court.
The state title game played on big screens in the cafeteria throughout the evening.
“(Deer Lakes athletic director) Chuck (Bellisario) and the athletic department and the basketball boosters did such a great job pulling it all together,” Rearick McGuire said.
Kathy Suvoy, a senior that season, wasn’t able to attend a gathering of team members in 2010 to mark the 25th anniversary. Her parents attended that day, but she said she was not missing this reunion.
“I was working outside the country at the time,” Suvoy said. “But Saturday, there were so many emotions. My husband was talking to me and asking, ‘How are you feeling? Are you excited? Are you anxious?’ And I was like, ‘All of the above.’ That was before I even got there.
“There is something to be said about childhood friends when you accomplish something like we did. It was as if no time had gone by, but it’s been 40 years. We were laughing and telling stories. Walking into the gym, I could picture the practices and the games and just all the time we hung out and bonded. Some of us brought memorabilia from that season, and the championship trophies were there. It was just overwhelming, more than I anticipated.”
Team members along with Rearick McGuire and Suvoy who returned to celebrate were Dr. Terri Gizienski-Ulewicz, Elizabeth Tambellini, Lisa Mangino, Michele Murray, Francie Rombaldi, Jill Switalski, Gingy Hahn, Stacey McCaskey, Valerie Chauvin and Erica Goodrich.
They had the chance to reconnect with coach Don Favero and assistant K.C. Ladish, who helped guide the 1985 Lancers to a bevy of victories while losing just two games, both to North Catholic.
“I wasn’t the best coach in the state, and we might not have had the best players in the state, but together as a team, we were magic,” said Favero, who led teams to the WPIAL playoffs in all four classifications during a 35-year coaching career.
Favero last coached at Greensburg Central Catholic in 2012.
“We had the confidence that we would win every game,” he said. “The closeness we had 40 years ago, at the ceremony, it was still there. It was a wonderful experience.”
North Catholic won the section in the 1984-85 season, and the Lancers were the runner-up.
The Trojans won the first game handily, but the second game was closer.
“We did a four-corners stall,” Rearick McGuire said. “It was like 14-9 or something like that. Our fans left at halftime.
“We beat them in the WPIAL championship game, and that’s what counted the most.”
North Catholic standout Monique Wade missed the game with an injury, and Deer Lakes played a strong team game to capture a 42-32 victory at Pitt’s Fitzgerald Fieldhouse.
“If they weren’t in our section, I believe in my heart that we never would’ve won the state championship,” Favero said.
“I told the kids all the time that there is a team 20 miles down the road that is working really hard. That was great motivation for them the entire season. When we beat them in the WPIAL title game — they were the defending state champion — we felt that we could go all the way.”
Deer Lakes made it to the PIAA second round a year earlier, falling to District 10’s Hickory, 33-32, in overtime. But the Lancers were not going to be denied this time around as they beat Franklin Area, Turtle Creek, Sharon and then Bishop Guilfoyle in overtime to clinch a spot in the title game in Hershey.
“I remember after the Bishop Guilfoyle win everyone threw Hershey kisses on the court,” said Rearick McGuire, who is in the pharmaceutical sales business and lives in Gibsonia.
Deer Lakes trailed Palmyra, the fourth-place team from District 3, 30-13 at halftime.
The Lancers rallied with pressure defense and their stellar conditioning on display and had the ball for a final shot with the score tied 43-43.
Gizienski, now a radiologist specializing in breast cancer issues at UPMC Cranberry, had the ball in her hands to begin the final play.
“Terri brought the ball down the court to see if she had a shot or if anyone was open,” Rearick McGuire said. “She found me, and it was a short jumper from about five feet. It was a jumper and a layup combined off the backboard. It just worked. There was excitement and relief all at once. It was just an unbelievable feeling.”
Favero recalled some stern words of motivation in a talk with Gizienski at halftime.
“She didn’t score in the first half,” he said. “I told her that she is one of the best guards in the state of Pennsylvania. I believed that, and I believed in her.
“She came out really motivated for the second half. She came over and kicked an ice bucket that was filled with plastic bottles. She was like a wild person. She was like ‘coach, I am ready to play!’ Then she went on a complete tear, and she lifted everyone else up. She had that look in her eyes. I called it The Great Awakening.”
The celebration was immediate, and it also lasted the entire three hours back to the school in West Deer where a large contingent of well-wishers greeted the team.
“The support we got from family, friends and the community was so very nice. It meant a lot to all of us,” Rearick McGuire said.
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.
Tags: Deer Lakes
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