Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[email protected], January 18, 2022
Fox Chapel standout senior Eli Yofan said his team had a defensive goal for Tuesday’s big game against Central Catholic.
“Our goal every game is to keep the other team’s score under 50,” Yofan said. “But when Central Catholic comes to your gym and is ranked higher than you are, you want to keep them under 40.”
Say what? This was a Central Catholic team that was undefeated against WPIAL competition and had scored 72, 100 and 74 points the past three games. Holding the Vikings under 40 couldn’t be a realistic goal.
“Clearly, it is now,” Yofan countered.
Fox Chapel reached its defensive goal and in the process took over sole possession of first place in WPIAL Class 6A Section 3 with a 54-37 victory against Central Catholic.
Fox Chapel (12-1 overall, 5-0 in section), ranked No. 3 in Class 6A, will clearly jump over No. 2 Central Catholic (10-3, 4-1) in the new rankings. Just like the Foxes’ man-to-man defense jumped all over Central Catholic most of the night. If you think holding Central Catholic to 37 total points was impressive, get a load of this even more hard-to-believe statistic: Fox Chapel held Central Catholic to 16 points through three quarters.
There are many clamoring for a shot clock in Pennsylvania, but this wasn’t a case of Central Catholic holding the ball and taking more than 30 seconds off the clock on each possession. Fox Chapel simply did a tremendous job defensively, holding Central Catholic junior guard Dante DePante (20 ppg) to 9 points. Just about every shot he took was contested and he finished 3 of 13. And Debaba Tshiebwe, a strong 6-5 junior, was no factor offensively, finishing with four points.
Fox Chapel’s help defense was excellent on drives to the basket and they came up with many of the 50-50 balls.
“We struck out,” Central Catholic coach Brian Urso said.
Three is the number of shots Central Catholic hit in the second and third quarters combined when the Vikings went 3 of 23 from the field.
So was it Fox Chapel’s defense that did in Central Catholic, or was it simply a really off night offensively for Central Catholic?
“I think it was a little bit of hem and a little bit of us,” Fox Chapel coach Zach Skrinjar said. “To hold them to 16 points over three quarters, I think people would’ve lost a lot of bets on that one. But it happens. It’s happened to us. It’s basketball.”
Urso said, “We had no rhythm. We did not make a lot of shots and credit their defense for sure. They packed the lane and force you to take contested shots.”
On this night, FC stood for Foil Central. Fox Chapel scored the first eight points of the game and never trailed. DePante scored a basket early in the second quarter to cut Fox Chapel’s lead to 12-11. Over the next 12 minutes in the second and third quarters, Central Catholic had one basket and three points until Vernon Settles made a shot with 1:04 left in the third quarter and that made it 27-16.
The game opened up more in the fourth quarter and Fox Chapel opened up a 46-26 lead with 3:55 left. Yofan, a talented guard, finished with 18 points and senior guard J.P. Dockey added 13.
Fox Chapel made only 27 percent (10 of 37) of it shots through three quarters. But it didn’t matter because of the way Fox Chapel defended and the way Central Catholic shot. Central Catholic also made 13 turnovers in the first three quarters.
“This is the first step toward our goal and that’s winning a WPIAL championship,” Yofan said. “First it’s the section championship and then the WPIAL. We’re undefeated through the first half of our section season. This was a huge win.”
Mike White: [email protected] and Twitter @mwhiteburgh