Shady Side Academy boys ride another upset to WPIAL semis

By: Dave Mackall
Friday, February 20, 2026 | 10:33 PM

Jim Dudas practically was speechless. When he did manage to utter a sound, his voice was so hoarse he was barely audible.

And that’s OK with the Shady Side Academy boys basketball coach, who is in his first season at the Fox Chapel-based private school.

The 13th-seeded Bulldogs did most of the talking with their superb play — again — Friday night in a WPIAL Class 3A quarterfinals victory against No. 5 Southmoreland at Charleroi High School.

Paul Benec scored 20 points, and Cam Mallory added 13 to lead Shady Side Academy (10-14) to a 47-34 triumph, its second postseason upset in as many games.

“I don’t know what to say,” a rattled and emotional Dudas said, almost whispering. “Our kids just played tremendous.”

Shady Side Academy will play No. 8 South Allegheny (15-8) in the semifinals Tuesday at a site and time to be determined. The Gladiators upset top-seeded Mohawk, 64-63, on Drew Cook’s basket in the closing seconds.

The Warriors came in with an unblemished 21-0 record and ranked No. 1 in the PIAA by TribLive.

Shady Side Academy, which surprised No. 4 Bishop Canevin, 61-48, in the first round, will look to continue a trend that has been building since the first of the year, Dudas said.

“We got a big game from everybody. They’re just playing so hard and so together, it’s amazing,” he said. “(Benec) had the really good game, but what the difference for us and the difference in our turnaround since Jan. 1 has been our defense. Southmoreland is a tremendous basketball team. I lost sleep over scouting those guys. They’re really good. They shoot the (daylights) out of it.”

But the Scotties weren’t on target often against the Bulldogs’ zone defense, something Dudas said he hadn’t used much in his previous years as a head coach, most recently at Sewickley Academy.

It worked so well against Southmoreland that high-scoring Noah Felentzer was limited to nine points — nearly 10 below the senior guard’s average — and the Scotties failed to score in the third quarter after trailing by four points at halftime.

“It went back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth in the second half. No one’s scoring, and they hit a 3 and get a 7-point gap,” Southmoreland coach Frank Muccino said. “We had a couple rim in and out. If they go in, maybe it’s a different story.”

Brady Sherbondy led Southmoreland (15-9) with 10 points.

Shady Side Academy scored 10 unanswered points in the third quarter and held a seemingly comfortable 14-point lead (33-19) heading to the fourth.

“Like I told them, you’re never going to win a basketball game going scoreless for a quarter,” Muccino said. “I thought to myself when it happened, ‘I can’t recall when it happened before.’ It had to have been a really, really long time ago.”

Southmoreland cut the deficit in half, though, getting within 36-29 on Stanley Chapman’s conventional three-point play. But the Scotties couldn’t find the hoop with any regularity and stumbled down the stretch.

“It looked worse because we didn’t shoot well,” Muccino said. “If we shoot a little bit better, it’s a different game.”

The first half featured five lead changes with neither team establishing control.

Shady Side Academy led by as many as eight points in the first quarter but fell behind in the second following a 12-2 Southmoreland run.

Shady Side Academy closed out the quarter on an 8-2 run to take a 23-19 halftime lead.

The Bulldogs pulled away with a 10-0 blitz in the third.

When the night was over, Dudas came away stunned.

And about as happy as he possibly could be.

“I love to see these players come together like they have,” he said. “It’s why I still do this.”

Tags: Shady Side Academy, Southmoreland