Trib HSSN girls basketball player of the week for Feb. 27, 2023

By: Don Rebel
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 12:01 AM

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A year ago, the South Fayette girls basketball team was the No. 2 seed and stunned top seed and favored Chartiers Valley in the WPIAL championship game.

This year, the Lions have been on top of the rankings all year and are the team to beat in the Class 5A postseason as the No. 1 seed.

Two impressive playoff wins later, nobody’s opinion has changed.

“We have accepted that teams are after us now, and it wasn’t like that last year,” South Fayette senior and leading scorer Maddie Webber said. “We know we want it bad, so you have to have the same intensity.”

Intensity has not been a problem for the Lions in the first two rounds of the postseason.

In the first round, South Fayette rolled past Plum, 72-29.

“Our coach tells us that even when you’re up, you have to act like it’s 0-0, so we obviously don’t want to have a lot of turnovers and try to play like it’s the first quarter,” Webber said.

In the quarterfinals, South Fayette cruised past Penn-Trafford, 70-49, thanks to a big game by Webber as the Lions punched their ticket return to the district final four.

Webber, who is averaging over 17 points per game, scored a game-high 39 points in the win over the Warriors.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my team finding me when I was open,” Webber said. “I haven’t really been on with my shot the whole season, but I’m confident enough in myself that I know I can shoot the 3 and not stop, even if I’m not making them. They were just falling for me that night.”

Even on nights when her shots aren’t falling, Webber can do so many things to help her teammates and still lead the Lions to success.

“I know I’m not just a scorer on the team. I know I have to still play good defense, give effort, get rebounds, make good passes,” Webber said. “There’s so much more I can do other than score.”

While Webber is focused on unfinished business in the WPIAL and then the PIAA playoffs for the Lions, she will eventually turn in her South Fayette green for Wildcats navy blue after accepting an offer to continue her education and basketball career on the other side of the state at Villanova.

“I got a lot of my offers this past summer and I really didn’t think I’d get an offer like Villanova,” Webber said. “Their one coach saw me, so I got to go on a visit, but I didn’t have an offer at the time, but I fell in love with the campus and that was really the one offer I was hoping for. They finally offered me, and I was super excited.”

Before South Fayette can defend its championship at the Pete, it has to defeat the long-shot darlings of the postseason, No. 12-seeded Woodland Hills, on Tuesday at Peters Township.

“We know they are a big team,” Webber said. “We just have to do a lot of the little things and work hard against them. Do what we always do.”

Trib HSSN Girls Basketball Players of the Week:

Week 7 – Kaley Rohanna, Waynesburg Central

Week 6 – Madison Zavasky, Pine-Richland

Week 5 – Mairan Haggerty, Neshannock

Week 4 – Iyanna Wade, Clairton

Week 3 – Shaye Bailey, Freedom

Week 2 – Rylee Kalocay, Upper St. Clair

Week 1 – McKenna DeUnger, Charleroi

Tags: South Fayette