Franklin Regional girls improve playoff positioning, beat Kiski Area

By: Michael Love
Monday, January 29, 2024 | 10:39 PM

The Franklin Regional girls basketball team strengthened its position for a shot at a WPIAL playoff spot Monday with a 53-38 victory over Kiski Area in a Section 1-5A matchup.

The Panthers won their third in a row, adding the win over the Cavaliers to a close section triumph over Penn Hills on Friday.

“Even backtracking to the Penn Hills game, the girls knew what they needed to do to get to where we need to be in the section,” said Franklin Regional coach Bernie Pucka, who saw his team improve to 6-13 overall and 5-5 in the section.

“As we add these wins, the pressure adds up, too. The message in the locker room tonight was one game at a time. We also talked about memories we can create, and I think tonight was a really good memory for the girls. That really relaxed the locker room, and the girls came out not tense or with any pressure.”

Franklin Regional moved into fourth place in the section, one half game behind Woodland Hills (5-4) and one half game ahead of Penn Hills (4-5). The Wolverines topped the Indians, 37-26, on Monday.

The Panthers pay a visit to section leader Indiana (7-0) on Thursday before capping section play Monday against Gateway (0-9).

“To go to Indiana and steal a win would be great,” Pucka said.

“Then we have Gateway on senior night. The overall record might not show it, but we’re in a good place right now. We’re going to try to take care of what we can and see what happens with the rest of the teams.”

Kiski Area all but saw its playoff hopes fall by the wayside as it dropped to 2-7 in the section and 6-12 overall.

“We’ve had winnable games that we didn’t get done that put us in this position,” Kiski Area coach Dave Williamson said.

“But we just have to keep playing and see what happens.”

Kiski Area hosts Woodland Hills on Thursday and finishes section play Monday at Plum and Feb. 9 at home with Penn Hills.

The Cavaliers had hoped to build on Friday’s win over Gateway, but they were not able to rally from an 11-point halftime deficit that increased to as much as 16 on a 3-pointer from senior guard Angela Brush with 5 minutes, 12 seconds to go in the third quarter.

Brush shared team leading-scorer honors with senior forward Gabrielle Keough. Both finished with 14 points. Keough scored all 14 of her points in the second half.

With Kiski Area battling through foul trouble and two starters — senior Cora Coleman and sophomore Gianna DeVito — on the bench having fouled out, Franklin Regional pushed the offense inside in the fourth quarter and converted all seven of its field goals on layups.

“Kiski was sagging on defense, and (junior point guard) Maddie (DeRiggi) was taking advantage of that,” Pucka said.

“Gabby finished everything that was brought to her. We’ll take it in those situations.”

Kiski Area was able to cut its deficit down to 10 on two occasions, the latest at 47-37 with 3:08 left in the fourth in a 3-pointer from Cavaliers senior Abbie Johns.

Johns left the game at the 5:11 mark of the second quarter after taking an inadvertent shot to the face while trying to protect a rebound.

She came back to start the second half and scored 16 of her game-best 21 points over the final 16 minutes.

“That is just the kind of player she is,” Williamson said.

“She came back and responded and gave us a chance. I was proud of her. I was proud of all the girls. We competed and kept competing. We had a lot of youth on the floor in a key section game. There was no quit in any of them.”

All five Franklin Regional starters finished with at least six rebounds.

Keough led the way with seven boards.

“It was similar at times to the first game where they out-rebounded us and out-physicaled us,” Williamson said.

“We were getting stops, but on several occasions, we were not able to complete those stops by getting rebounds. They have size, and it’s good size. We knew it was going to be a tough task inside. That is where they won the game, in the paint.”

Coleman and DeVito were saddled with three fouls in the latter half of the second quarter, and both sat for the rest of the half.

Add Johns’ time on the bench to recover from her injury, and the Cavaliers were down three starters.

Franklin Regional turned that adversity for Kiski Area into a 10-3 run to close out the half.

“That was a big run there for them to close the half,” Williamson said. “We had missed some opportunities, but it was close up to that point.”

Panthers senior guard Olivia Orndorf just missed double-figures in scoring with nine points.

One downside Pucka noted from the win was his team’s performance from the foul line. The Panthers missed 13 foul shots, finishing 8 of 21 from the line.

“We definitely have to clean that up,” Pucka said. “We have to get better.”

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.