No. 1 Montour scrapes past ninth-seeded Latrobe in Class 5A quarterfinals

By: Ted Sarneso
Friday, February 21, 2025 | 11:18 PM

In what was a tightly contested matchup between top-seeded Montour and No. 9 Latrobe on Friday night, both coaches admitted their teams didn’t execute as well as they had hoped.

Each team had its troubles, but Montour did enough to win 60-52 over Latrobe to advance to the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals.

“The execution was not where it could have been,” said Latrobe coach Brad Wetzel. “I really like our team’s grit, their toughness. I thought tonight the effort was tremendous, but the execution was just off.”

Said Montour coach Bill Minear: “It was an ugly win on our part. I thought Latrobe played very well, and we had to grind one out.”

For much of the first half, Latrobe (19-5) tried its best to find looks on the outside, as 6-foot-11 Montour senior Ama Sow plugged the middle and denied or redirected any shot attempts in the paint.

What did work for the Wildcats was bringing senior forward Ian DeCerb, whom Sow guarded all night, to the outside. That pulled Sow out of the paint and allowed the Cats to get back cuts and easy layups.

“I thought it was a great strategy,” said Minear. “In today’s game, teams are putting five guys on the court that can shoot, so we had to honor DeCerb, who can shoot, when he went out. We had to pick our poison.”

Latrobe sprinkled that strategy into their offense in the first half just to see what would open up, but used it the majority of the second half to start a rally.

The Wildcats got down 16-11 after the first quarter and 27-20 at halftime.

Latrobe mounted a comeback in the third quarter and briefly held the lead.

“We wanted to get him out of there to open things up,” said Wetzel. “He’s so effective and so nimble, and you can’t teach 6-11. He’s a handful, but we knew that coming in and it wasn’t a surprise. If he stayed near or if he came out, we had a game plan for either.”

It allowed senior Max Butler and junior Andy Tatsch to find their way to the hoop for some easy layups. Once the Spartans caught on and started to clog the middle, it allowed Butler to start getting open looks on the outside.

That led to the Wildcats tying the score 35-35, and Butler nailed a 3-pointer a few moments later off a turnover to give the Wildcats a 38-35 edge, their only lead of the night.

Butler led the Wildcats with 22 points and sank three 3-pointers while DeCerb finished with 16 points.

“That Butler kid doesn’t quit, and I thought his energy in the second half led them forward,” said Minear.

Unfortunately for the Wildcats, even though they had great looks, they couldn’t execute on the majority of their opportunities to make the timely basket that would allow them to get a string of buckets together.

“We came out in the second half and erased that deficit, and I thought that was really important,” said Wetzel. “It just seemed like we had a difficult time with a missed shot that was makeable or a turnover or a second shot and some untimely fouls on the other end.”

The Wildcats won the third quarter 15-13 but were still down 40-35 heading to the fourth.

The Wildcats couldn’t stop the Spartans when they needed. After being up 38-35, they allowed the Spartans to immediately tie the game with a 3 from Colton Straight. Montour never looked back after that shot.

Straight’s triple was only one of two that the Spartans hit all night. AJ Alston had the other.

For a team that averages eight or nine 3s a night, it was tough sledding as they came up empty from beyond the arc.

“Big game, loud crowd,” said Straight. “Those things factor into it. Sometimes it’s just like that when you don’t hit a lot of shots.”

“We only hit four 3s in the first round as well,” said Minear. “Hopefully we’ll start hitting them again as that’s a really big key to our offense.”

Although he couldn’t be missed out on the court, Sow had a quiet 19 points to lead the Spartans. He had four blocks.

Straight followed with 17 points and Alston finished with 12.

Montour (23-1) will take on Chartiers Valley for the third time in the semifinals Tuesday.

“That’s a tough matchup,” said Minear. “We had two really hard-fought games earlier on in the season.”

Latrobe will take on Moon in the consolation bracket Monday.

“I think Moon and Montour are tremendous teams,” said Wetzel. “The bracket on this side is very difficult. I’m just happy to be around my guys and to be able to coach them as long as possible. They’re a fun team to be around, and I have all the confidence in the world that we’ll show up and be ready to play Monday against a Moon team that’s very similar to Montour and are very good.”

Tags: Latrobe, Montour