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Thursday, February 6, 2025, TRIB-LIVE
Fox Chapel coach Zach Skrinjar isn’t worried about the classification the Foxes fall under when the PIAA realigns their boys basketball divisions every two years. The Foxes plan to adjust and contend.
When Fox Chapel returned to Class 6A this season, the Foxes stuck to the plan. Fox Chapel has lost three section games, two to first-place New Castle, but still had a chance to win the section crown with some luck as the regular season schedule wound down.
“Since I’ve been at Fox Chapel, the word rebuild has never been in my vocabulary,” Skrinjar said. “It’s been reloading. It’s a testament to our players, our system and our program in general. We expected to produce regardless.”
Fox Chapel is 15-5 overall and 10-3 in Section 1-6A play heading into its final section game against Butler on Friday.
The Foxes dropped both games to New Castle, which is also 10-3 in section. Fox Chapel needs to beat the Golden Tornado and get a New Castle loss to win the section.
Caden Kaiser has grown into a diverse player for Fox Chapel. Kaiser averages 16.0 points and pulls down nearly six rebounds per contest.
Skrinjar said Kaiser’s primary strength is inside the paint, but he can do a lot of different things well.
“Since we’ve never had a center, per se, we want all of our guys to be strong overall basketball players,” Skrinjar said. “We want to ensure that anyone on the court has a basic skill set. We want people to be comfortable handling the ball or finishing around the hoop.”
Asher White averages 11 points to give the Foxes a strong second scoring option. Skrinjar said he is happy with how his team defends as well.
Skrinjar expects the WPIAL playoffs will be a tough battle.
“We need to be able to defend as a collective unit,” Skrinjar said. “That’s been our strength in the majority of our games. We do a good job of holding our opponents to low scores. We need our defense to help generate more offense for us.”