Fox Chapel boys rally in second half to defeat Pine-Richland, advance to WPIAL semis

By: George Guido
Friday, February 25, 2022 | 10:02 PM

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Fox Chapel coach Zach Skrinjar doesn’t mind games of two different halves.

His Foxes were down by nine against Pine-Richland in Friday’s Class 6A quarterfinal.

But Fox Chapel came alive in the third quarter and posted a 77-67 win over the Rams before an overflow home crowd.

Eli Yofan tied a career high with 34 points as the Foxes outscored Pine-Richland, 21-8, in the third after trailing 41-32 at the half.

Fox Chapel (22-1) also set a school record with its 21st consecutive victory, breaking the old standard of 20 set in the state championship season of 1976-77 and tied two seasons ago before the covid crisis hit.

The Foxes now will play Central Catholic in the semifinals Tuesday at a site and time to be determined. The winner will play in the WPIAL finals at Pitt’s Petersen Events Center next Saturday at 7 p.m.

‘We always talk about every game this year being a tale of two halves,” Skrinjar said. “The most irrelevant score of the game is the halftime score. So we just said we had to cobble together some stops. They did a great job shooting the basketball in the first half.”

The Rams (12-12) tallied six 3-point field goals in the first half, taking a nine-point lead on a pair of free throws by Andrew Swartout with 36 seconds to go before the intermission.

The Foxes tied the score 46-46 on a drive through the key by J.P. Dockey with 2 minutes, 36 seconds to go in the third quarter.

Josh Gimbel’s 3-pointer gave Pine-Richland the lead back, 49-46, but Yofan gave Fox Chapel the lead for good with a basket with 45 seconds left in the third and ended the quarter with a 3-pointer to make it 53-49.

“Even dating back to last year, it was a very similar score at halftime in favor of Pine-Richland, “ Yofan said. “We hated the feeling we had after the game, and we didn’t want that again.”

Dockey then went to work, scoring the first six points of the final quarter for the Foxes.

“We just stopped attacking the hoop in the second half,” Rams coach Bob Petcash said. “When we were scoring inside, it opened up the outside, and we stopped going to the hole and we missed some layups.”

Swartout picked up his third personal with 6:33 left in the third quarter with his team still in front by six. Petcash also felt a couple of offensive fouls called made Pine-Richland hesitant to go inside.

A basket by Colin Kwiatkowski gave the Foxes their first double-digit lead, 63-53, with 4:28 to go.

Said Skrinjar: “We said, ‘Guys, this possibly could be your last 16 minutes of basketball, and this is how we don’t want it to end.’ To a man, and coaches, kind of made that decision it was not.”

Yofan also led the Foxes with 13 rebounds and added three assists and three steals. He now has 1,516 career points as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

Dockey finished with 15 points before fouling out with 55.3 seconds left.

Swartout led the Rams with 18 points, Joey Dudkowski added 16 and Andrew Alexander 11 as Pine-Richland concluded its eighth straight trip to the playoffs and the 21st in the school’s 68-year history.

Tags: Fox Chapel, Pine-Richland