With stability on sidelines, North Hills girls eye return to postseason

By: Josh Rowntree
Saturday, December 6, 2025 | 11:01 AM

Jason Pirring saw a lot of reasons to be encouraged by his team last season despite the hardships that can come with having a youthful roster in Class 6A.

Now, with a solid core of young players who got an important year of experience under their belts and who will have needed stability on the sidelines, North Hills is hopeful that a return to the postseason may follow.

“I feel bad for that senior class last year that graduated,” said Pirring, who enters his second season after Tony Grenek left to take the Shaler job after two seasons at North Hills. “They had three coaches in four years. So it kind of gives you the state of how North Hills basketball was. The coaching staff flipped around quite a bit over time.

“It was terrible to see, and it was something I tried to explain when I was going through the interview process. I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”

The Indians, who were bumped up to Class 6A last season, finished 7-15 and 3-7 in Section 1-6A, failing to reach the playoffs a year after the program won its first section title in 44 years.

“The maturity of our team last year, I mean, we had some freshmen starting,” Pirring said. “It’s just a maturity level of understanding a shot in the beginning of a game is different than the end of the game. I think a lot of times our girls didn’t see that.

“This offseason, it was a lot of individual work, too. Some girls needed to work on ballhandling. Some girls needed to work on being in the post and working on some drop steps or whatever it may be.”

Pirring, who was hired relatively late last year, felt as if North Hills was constantly playing catch-up throughout last season. He now feels like the group is more stable and ready to hit the ground running.

He will have to replace the team’s top player from a year ago in Gia Minton, who graduated but is still spending plenty of time around the program as a volunteer assistant coach.

“It’s nice to have her come back,” Pirring said. “I do miss her with a jersey on, though.”

The cupboard is far from bare for North Hills, particularly with the emergence of sophomore Zoe Devlin, who has become one of the WPIAL’s most promising young players and has picked up a Division I offer from Buffalo.

“Zoe’s going to be a massive contributor to our team this year,” Pirring said. “She’s nonstop working on her game. She’s getting looks from Division I schools, and I have coaches reaching out to me. From last year to this year, her confidence level is much, much higher than it was last season.

“She has learned so much from last season. She wants the basketball in her hands as much as possible, but she’s also doing a great job of passing the ball this year.”

Around Devlin will be a young but talented group of supporters, particularly junior Delaney Amato, a standout goalkeeper for the North Hills soccer team who brings size at 5-foot-10 to the guard position.

“She’s grown, is much taller and is filling into her body,” Pirring said. “She’s becoming more of a physical basketball player, and I’m going to need her on offense and defense this season.”

One of four seniors on the roster, Sophie Regan — who is the daughter of Pitt men’s basketball director of operations Brian Regan — will be in the lineup along with junior Lily Zickefoose and Pirring’s daughter, Lucy, a sophomore.

“All of those girls last year, one way or the other, started some games for us or were the sixth person off the bench,” Pirring added. “The majority of them played a ton of minutes last year.”

Lily Zickefoose’s sister, Keally, as well as Morgan Duty and Emmy Culver will play meaningful roles from the bench.

“We have (Regan) starting and some seniors coming off the bench but are still fairly young,” Pirring sid. “It’s kind of a good, bad problem to have.”

North Hills will once again play a daunting nonsection schedule before it hops into games with a balanced and talented section that was won by Seneca Valley last season.

Pirring feels that the Raiders and Pine-Richland will be among the teams to beat, but that Butler and North Allegheny will be challengers as well. He also acknowledges Woodland Hills, which brings back most of its roster from last year.

“Almost every single team we played last year was a playoff-caliber team,” said Pirring, who is fine with the tests that will await his team even before section play begins. “That’s something that I’m trying to explain to the girls this season. I could easily schedule games with teams that we can definitely get wins over to build our confidence.

“But that’s not how 6A basketball is. There are no games where you’re going in thinking, ‘Oh, we got this easily.’ ”

Tags: North Hills