Epps, Cook shoot Gladiators past Cougars

Cam Epps (24) and Drew Cook (18) combined for 10 3-pointers and 42 points in SA’s win over Charleroi.

Charleroi head coach Joe Dunn joked that if his Cougars pulled the upset over No. 2 South Allegheny Tuesday night, the Monongahela River was going to be named the Charleroi River.

Well, there will be no renaming of the river and Dunn probably felt as though the Gladiators could shoot the ball from the river and it would have went in.

South Allegheny buried 11 3-pointers and used an early 16-0 run in the first and a quick start in the third quarter to overpower the 15th-seeded Cougars and storm into the WPIAL Class 3A quarterfinals with a 61-32 win on their home floor in front of a raucous crowd.

“That is a very good team,” Dunn said. “They had the right people in the right places and they made the shots. They can advance really far.

“We wanted to double their time on defense compared to their time on offense, and I thought we did that in the first half. But once they start hitting those shots, we were forced out of that.”

Cam Epps hit six 3-pointers and led all scorers with a game-high 24 points for the Gladiators (20-3). Drew Cook had four shots from deep and added 18 points for the winners. The team played without starter Josh Jackowski, who suffered a concussion over a week ago.

“We knew that was going to be their game plan, to kind of come in and slow the game down, which it was a good one early on,” SA head coach Tony DiCenzo said. “I thought we could have scored a little more efficiently in the first half. We were only up 15 at the half and we weren’t real thrilled with that.”

Charleroi’s Jackson Keranko hit the first bucket of the game with a 3-pointer just over a minute in to give the Cougars an early lead. The bad news was those were the only points his team scored in the opening frame.

Cook and Epps combined for 15 points in a 16-0 run. The Glads led 11-3 after one quarter and extended it to 16-3 on an Epps three with 6:10 remaining in the first half.

“We have a couple of guys here that have a lot of playoff experience, so we leaned on that,” DiCenzo said. “Us continuing to score prevented them from settling in offensively. Playing without Josh, we had a couple of different guys in different spots, and we had to get acclimated.”

After Charleroi’s Noah Pletcher scored a hoop inside, Cook and the Cougars’ Brock Henderson exchanged triples to make it 23-11.

“When you get down that many, you’re forced to go with your best shooters and try to nail a few,” Dunn said. “When we did, they were able to answer every time.”

Jake Uher, who finished with 9 points for South Allegheny, converted a threepoint play and Fischer Ielease scored on a putback to help the lead swell to 28-13 at the break.

“We talk about coming out in the first three minutes of the second half and how that usually dictates how the rest of the game is going to play out,” DiCenzo said. “We always want to come out with high energy and hit our shots.”

The first three shots the Gladiators hit in the secondhalf? A trio of 3-pointers from the same spot on the floor.

“We knew our intensity in the second half had to be better as well as our effort,” Epps said. “It all starts with the defense and our offense, we were able to hit the shots from the same spot on the floor.”

Epps added a three-point play after a strong drive to the basket, even high-fiving his dad along the baseline. Back-to-back 3-pointers and a Uher putback eventually made it 48-18 and started the running clock midway through the third.

The quarter ended with the Gladiators outscoring the Cougars by a 27-7 margin to squash any hopes of a Cougars’ comeback.

Camden Lewis was dominant on the inside for SA. He only scored 2 points, but he ripped down 12 rebounds.

“Overall, it was great to be back out there, but we were a little lackadaisical on defense and missed a couple of assignments. We’ll clean that up,” DiCenzo said.

“Each time you advance, the pressure gets greater and the challenge gets greater. We’re going to have to be better than we were tonight.”

DiCenzo added that he’s hopeful Jackowski will return to the lineup against No. 10 Ellwood City. It will be a game the Gladiators and Epps will have no issues getting up for.

The Wolverines (13-9) – who beat No. 7 South Park in their first-round matchup Tuesday – beat South Allegheny in the WPIAL championship game in 2021. That team featured Antonio and Bryce Epps, Cam’s older brothers.

“Friday it’s Ellwood City or South Park, I think we’re taking the dub,” Epps said before he knew the opponent his Gladiators will face. “It’s one game at a time and we have to handle our business and play the way we know how. I have to be humble, I’m a leader on and off the court. We’ll be ready for whoever it is.”