Teammates lend hand to big man Ryan Robbins as Upper St. Clair pulls away from Fox Chapel

By: Brennan Valladares
Thursday, February 19, 2026 | 10:09 PM

Ryan Robbins was feasting in the first half against the smaller Fox Chapel front line in No. 1 Upper St. Clair’s first playoff game of its WPIAL Class 6A title defense.

By halftime, the 6-foot-7 junior had 16 points. The only problem was that the rest of his team had six.

“We needed to get scoring from our guards,” Upper St. Clair coach Danny Holzer said of his team, tied 22-22 at halftime with the No. 8 Foxes.

To start the third, Holzer got what he needed from his guards, as they rattled off three 3-pointers in the first three minutes to help give Upper St. Clair the separation it needed to pull out a 56-41 win in the 6A quarterfinals Thursday night.

While the 3s created the distance on the scoreboard, Holzer noted that his team’s defensive adjustments gave the Panthers the necessary momentum to hit those shots.

“I think what ignited that (run) there was our defense,” he said, “because we don’t usually press that much, but we knew they were going to try to slow the game down and go tempo.

“So we worked the last couple days on a on a full-court press and a half-court trap, and I think that that got us more possessions, and we got loose a couple times and made those three.”

USC (22-1) used an 18-13 third quarter to build a 40-35 lead heading into the fourth. In that decisive third quarter, Robbins scored nine points on his way to a game-high 29 and 11 rebounds.

“Yeah, he’s just such a tremendous player,” Holzer said, “(His) footwork is second to none for his size, and he’s really good when he gets the ball with minimizing dribbles and being able to score.”

For Robbins, he lauded his teammates for his monster performance.

“Oh, it’s my teammates,” Robbins said. “My teammates keep on feeding me the ball. They know what worked in the first half, and it was getting the ball inside. … So I’m just super blessed that I have teammates that are willing to pass … and that’s the reason that we won tonight.”

The starting Panther guards finished with a combined 10 assists, most of which went to Robbins. Andrew Gaither was the team’s second-leading scorer with 11 points, Jake Foster had nine points and six assists and Luke Marchinsky had seven and three.

In the first half, the defensive intensity of both sides made quality looks hard to come by. A prime example of the defensive fight was the final shot of the first quarter.

With 10 seconds left and Fox Chapel (14-10) trailing 10-8, the Foxes had to use nearly all the remaining time to get off a contested look from Joe McGivney. The junior point guard fired in a last-second 3-pointer from the left wing to give his team an 11-10 lead.

In the second, Fox Chapel continued to fight hard, winning the quarter thanks to Grant Fenton scoring all 11 of the Foxes’ points. He finished with a team-high 13.

After doing their best to stay attached to the top-seeded Panthers, though, the Foxes slowly were walked down beginning in the third quarter. USC’s 11-5 run to begin the second half gave it all the momentum it needed to move on in the WPIAL tournament.

For the third straight year, Upper St. Clair advanced to the semifinals. Its next opponent will be No. 4 Seneca Valley on Monday. With three days to prep, Holzer is ready to put all his focus on the next game.

“These guys know,” he said of his team’s ability to lock in on its next opponent. “They’re veterans. They’ve been around for the last several years, and they know how important it is.

“In the playoffs, it’s one game at a time. The next game is more important than the one that just ended, as long as you won. So we’ll be locked in.”

Tags: Fox Chapel, Upper St. Clair