DeRubbo leads Trinity girls past Penn-Trafford in WPIAL Class 5A 1st round

By: Jesse Geleynse
Monday, February 18, 2019 | 1:30 AM

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The Trinity girls basketball team lost four of its final six games to end the regular season.

But the ninth-seeded Hillers are perfect so far when it matters: the postseason.

Trinity dominated eighth-seeded Penn-Trafford from the opening tip and defeated the Warriors, 55-26, in WPIAL Class 5A playoff action Tuesday at Mt. Lebanon High School.

“Best total game (we’ve played) for four quarters, putting it together defensively, and on the offensive side we finished a lot of shots that we’ve been missing earlier in the season,” Trinity coach Bob Miles said. “We played more under control, too. I think that had a lot to do with Riley (DeRubbo) being back and everybody playing together.”

DeRubbo, who missed most of the season while recovering from a torn ACL suffered last summer, led all scorers with 15 points.

“It was really frustrating having to sit out and watch the sport that I love so much,” DeRubbo said. “But watching my teammates play, it made me want to work harder to get back and help them.”

Courtney Dahlquist added 11 points for the Hillers (12-11), who get another shot at section rival and top-ranked Chartiers Valley (22-0) in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

The Colts defeated Trinity, 72-46 and 67-55, in section play during the regular season.

“You gotta play them all. It doesn’t matter,” Miles said. “If you going to go anywhere, you’ve gotta play all the good teams.”

Penn-Trafford, making its first WPIAL playoff appearance in two seasons, concludes the year 13-10. The Warriors had won three straight games to end the regular season.

The Hillers led 29-13 at the half. They continued to extend the lead as they closed the third quarter on a 13-0 run and led 49-19 through three quarters.

“We were really excited to come out and play tonight, and I thought we moved the ball really, really well,” DeRubbo said. “We played defense great, and that’s what we stressed in practice every day is defense, defense, defense. It’s what we have to be good at.”

P-T inadvertently committed a backcourt violation on the opening tipoff. It proved a harbinger of what was to come as the Warriors struggled to handle the ball, and Trinity raced out to a 15-3 lead after the opening quarter.

A pair of second-quarter 3-pointers from Bella Long helped P-T cut the deficit to 21-13 with 2:41 to go in the half. But Trinity answered with a trey from Alyssa Clutter and another from Emily Venick as time expired to take a 29-13 lead into halftime.

“We preached all week about how we have to make sure sure the (help) side was covered and couldn’t let (Long) spot up,” Miles said. “She hit a couple in the first half, and then we just kinda adjusted at halftime and made it more difficult for her to get open looks.”

Long finished with a dozen points and was the only Penn-Trafford player to reach double figures.

“They played hard the whole game tonight, and they’ve done that all season long,” Miles said of his team. “Tonight we were almost to full strength. We still don’t have our full starting lineup, but we’re getting better and healthy.”

Tags: Penn-Trafford, Trinity