East Allegheny girls cruise past Charleroi

By: Dean Dellamalva Jr.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020 | 10:24 PM

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The Charleroi Cougars girls basketball team has excelled this season in competitive, close games. East Allegheny made sure Wednesday night’s Class 3A first-round WPIAL matchup wouldn’t be one of those.

Abby Henderson and Amaia Johnson combined for 33 points to lead the seventh-seeded Wildcats to a 51-24 victory. East Allegheny will meet second-seeded Mohawk in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

Henderson notched a double-double with 17 points, 18 rebounds and five blocks. Johnson added 16 points. Casmere Marshall grabbed 11 boards with six points. East Allegheny had a 40-21 advantage on the boards.

“Our gameplan was to put pressure on the ball and we didn’t do a very good job of that,” Charleroi coach Bill Wagner said. “We also wanted to keep the ball out of Henderson’s hands and we didn’t do a very good job of that.”

Bella Skobel led 10th-seeded Charleroi (14-8) with 12 points. Fellow senior Cierra Gazi notched eight points with seven rebounds and three blocks.

The game was tied at four just under three minutes in before East Allegheny took off on a 13-1 run. Johnson had nine of those points and the Wildcats led 19-7 after eight minutes.

EA continued its roll with an 8-1 spurt to begin the second quarter. Another run by East Allegheny of 10-2 put the Cougars in big trouble, down 37-12 at the half.

Listen to an archived broadcast of this game on Trib HSSN.

Tags: Charleroi, East Allegheny