Fast-starting Blackhawk fends off Elizabeth Forward comeback bid in Class 4A semifinals

By: Liam Belan
Monday, February 24, 2025 | 10:29 PM

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It was always going to be difficult for the Elizabeth Forward girls basketball team to knock off Blackhawk in the WPIAL Class 4A semifinals.

Coming off a state championship last season, the No. 1 Cougars are as good as ever, only losing to Mt. Lebanon and Shady Side Academy this season.

Mt. Lebanon is playing for a chance at its WPIAL title Tuesday, Shady Side Academy has already booked its ticket to the Petersen Events Center, and Blackhawk did the same Monday evening with a 57-51 win.

In the WPIAL championship game for the second straight season, the Cougars will play No. 2 Oakland Catholic at 3 p.m. Saturday. The Cougars (23-2) will be seeking a district title after losing 40-37 to North Catholic in overtime last season.

“We know that Oakland (Catholic) is a good team,” Blackhawk coach Greg Huston said. “They’ve had a good program for years, and they have a bunch of good players as well, but we feel good about the squad that we’re bringing into the game. We have some good players too, and I just think it’s going to be a really good game.”

The score was close, but the game wasn’t always tight. In fact, after the first quarter, it would have been reasonable to predict the Cougars would mercy rule the Warriors.

Blackhawk jumped out to a 24-5 advantage and built up as much as a 24-point lead early in the second quarter as it seemed to be over. But No. 4 Elizabeth Forward (19-6) never wavered as its deficit actually loosened the Warriors up and took the pressure off them, even while playing without leading scorer Michelle Jellison, who received two technical fouls in the quarterfinal win over Beaver.

“Obviously it was frustrating for us in the second half in particular,” Huston said. “Give Mia Sostaric a lot of credit for knocking all those shots down. That put a lot of pressure on us, but we were able to see it out. We were frustrated with how we handled some of the traps and things like that, but at the end of the day, we made enough winning plays to pull it out.”

Sostaric, who ended up with a game-high 25 points on seven 3-pointers, teamed up with Kaelynn Settles to lead a furious comeback from EF. Settles posted a monstrous 17-point, 10-rebound, 10-steal triple-double that perfectly summed up her tenacious work ethic.

“(Mia) has been playing with a ton of confidence lately,” Elizabeth Forward coach Noah Yartin said. “She really wanted this. She wanted to go to the Pete, and she has another year to do that, but her confidence is through the roof now. She has the ability to score like that. …

“Kaelynn Settles was a beast on the glass as always. We all need to crash the glass like her. Her hustle and her defense are relentless.”

Blackhawk’s Aubree Hupp and Mia Sheesley got their team off to its strong start, and they ended up as the leading scorers for the Cougars. Hupp was dominant inside, particularly in the first half as she posted 17 of her 22 points in the opening two quarters. Sheesley finished with 11 more points in the win.

The two joined with Ava Pagani to score the first eight points of the contest before Chloe Zombek got the Warriors on the board with a layup. From there, Sheesley knocked down two straight triples before one 3 from EF’s Kaylin Staszak brought the score to 14-5.

Blackhawk rattled off 10 more unanswered points to end the quarter and extended it to a 12-0 run with the first points of the second as Hupp had nine of those points and Andrea Kinger nailed a shot from downtown.

With the score at 26-5, Settles finally got the Warriors back on the scoresheet with a free throw, but it got even worse with four more points from Blackhawk to make it 30-6 in their favor.

About five minutes remained in the first half at that point, but right when it seemed that Elizabeth Forward was completely down and out, the Warriors emerged from their brutal start.

Settles and Sostaric poured in every point during a 12-4 run that brought EF’s halftime deficit to 34-18.

Settles and Hupp opened the third with layups, but the Warriors then went on another rally with eight straight points all courtesy of Sostaric and Settles. Suddenly, midway through the third quarter, EF only trailed by eight points at 36-28, but the Cougars struck back with a triple from Sheesley and a layup from Alivia Rabick.

Sostaric refused to quit, responding with two triples as she started to catch fire from deep-range. Her second make made the score 41-34 before Blackhawk again got two layups to preserve its lead.

Settles and Sostatic came up with five more points at the end of the quarter to bring the score to 45-39, but Pagani ended the third with two layups to once again make the winning plays that Huston mentioned.

In the fourth, Sostaric drilled another shot from deep range to put pressure on the Cougars, but they responded to it with a 3 of their own. After trading points, two straight steals and easy layups for the Warriors cut their deficit down to 54-48 as they opted for a timeout with 2:43 left to play.

But ultimately, Elizabeth Forward fell just short of a comeback and instead will face No. 3 North Catholic in an important consolation game in terms of state playoff seeding.

“We gotta come back and respond well,” Yartin said. “We have a big third-place game for home-court (advantage) in states. If we win the third-place game Wednesday, we’ll stay at home rather than having to travel to Erie, and that would be huge for us. We play well at home, so we really want this one.”

As for the Cougars, they’ll be hoping to adjust to a different matchup in Oakland Catholic.

“Oakland (Catholic) is such a different team (than Elizabeth Forward),” Huston said. “They have a 6-2 girl in the middle, so it’s a little bit different in the middle. But once you get to the Pete, you know you’re playing the best of the best, so we’re gonna bring everything we’ve got and let the chips fall where they may.”

Tags: Blackhawk, Elizabeth Forward