Upper St. Clair runs into Roman Catholic roadblock in PIAA semifinals

By: David Bohr
Saturday, March 22, 2025 | 6:54 PM

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CHAMBERSBURG — Through the whole basketball season, the defining characteristic for Upper St. Clair’s boys team has been its chemistry.

“Our team really fought for each other,” coach Danny Holzer said. “We were No. 1 in the WPIAL preseason, and it’s hard to be No. 1 from wire-to-wire. I think it was our team chemistry definitely helped us do that.”

That chemistry helped the Panthers win the WPIAL title and reach the PIAA Class 6A semifinals Saturday. Once there, though, Roman Catholic brought an end to Upper St. Clair’s season, 59-46, at Chambersburg High School.

And yet, even in that season-ending defeat, the Panthers’ chemistry and willingness to play for each other against steep odds was apparent.

Roman Catholic (25-5), the District 12 third-place team, already had a 33-19 lead at intermission and scored the first six points of the third quarter. Eventually, the Cahillites took a 21-point lead with 5:32 left in the third.

Then, Upper St. Clair came back to life.

The Panthers (26-3) went on an 11-0 run, ignited by a putback from Tyler Robbins and capped off with a dunk in transition by Kaamil Jackson.

That pulled Upper St. Clair to within 46-35 in the last 30 seconds of the third quarter, though Shareef Jackson helped Roman Catholic get a bit of momentum back with two free throws with 25 seconds to go in the period.

The momentum carried into the fourth period, when Sebastian Edwards hit a 3-point basket and C.J. Miller made a layup, wrapped around the Trojan turnover, to push the lead back out to 53-35.

The Panthers had a couple of mini-runs in the fourth quarter but never came closer than 11 points, when Robbins made two free throws with 45 seconds remaining to make it 57-46.

The Cahillites’ 10-2 run in the second quarter put them up 28-17 and allowed them to stay up by double figures the rest of the way.

“We needed to shoot better, especially early, and they didn’t need to shoot so well,” Holzer said about what needed to happen for the Panthers to win. “(Sammy) Jackson hit two 3-pointers and (Semaj Jackson) also hit two of them. That’s four 3s out of those two players, and that really made the difference.”

The Panthers also had 10 of their 18 turnovers in the first half, while Roman Catholic had just three giveaways in that time.

“We had to shoot better and control the ball better,” Holzer said. “It was just too many turnovers.”

Shareef Jackson led Roman Catholic with 19 points and six rebounds. Edwards added 11 points.

Robbins had a double-double with 18 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Nico Gidas added 11 points.

Roman Catholic will play Father Judge, a 69-58 winner over Imhotep in the other semifinal, for the gold medal at Hershey’s Giant Center next Saturday at 8 p.m.

Upper St. Clair has never been to a PIAA boys basketball championship game.

Tags: Upper St. Clair