Eagles pound Bears to glide into semis

Serra Catholic’s Caitlin Cooley rises for a layup to score two of her team-high 15 points in the Eagles’ win over Winchester Thurston Wednesday. Mike Darnay / MVI Sports

By LIAM BELAN
[email protected]
Serra Catholic could be playing its best basketball of the season at just the right time as the No. 3 Eagles dominated #11 Winchester Thurston during a 67-42 Class 2A WPIAL playoff victory at Bethel Park Wednesday night.
The victory moved Serra Catholic (20-4) to the district semifinals against No. 2 Aliquippa after they narrowly defeated No. 10 Clairton 35-34 Wednesday night.
“We’re playing really good team basketball right now,” Serra head coach Mike Voit said. “I’m really proud of the girls and their attention to detail. We’ve been saying, ‘Keep it simple,’ because sometimes we overcomplicate the game, but we did what we had to do tonight.
“We knew Winchester Thurston was gonna be scrappy, so we wanted to come out and play hard and we did that.”
The Eagles were led by a balanced offensive attack. Caitlyn Cooley (15), Abby Genes (14), Niki Sfanos (13) and Cate Clarke (10) reached double-digits while Bri Battles added eight more.
“It’s an any given night type of thing,” Voit said about the offense. “We’re usually playing with four guards out there, and we’re very unselfish which opens things up. You can tell by our bench; they’re always cheering everybody on.”

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.