State College Boys Basketball Prepares for Ascending Woodland Hills Team

The State College boys’ basketball team has done this before.

In 2016, after beating Altoona in the District 6 championship game, the Little Lions entered the first round of the PIAA state tournament and took on familiar Mid-Penn opponent Carlisle at Bald Eagle Area High School.

Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be a very good day. Carlisle won the rubber match between the two teams, 64-54, and ended State College’s season.

Now, coming off another big D6 championship victory over Altoona, the Little Lions will again be back at BEA, this time for the first round of the 2017 PIAA tournament at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. 

Instead of meeting up with an old rival, however, the Little Lions will take on up-and-coming Woodland Hills (16-9), the No. 4 team out of Pittsburgh’s District 7.

The Wolverines are quite a story. Just four years ago, when their current seniors were freshmen, they went 0-21 for the season, and it has been a slow climb back to respectability since then.

That journey, if the latter part of this season and the WPIAL playoffs are any indication, is quickly coming to a close. Woodland Hills won its last five games of the regular season and finally returned to the playoffs as the No. 11 seed in the WPIAL tournament.

The Wolverines proved they belonged when they immediately took out No. 6 Mount Lebanon in the first round. It was Woodland Hills’ first playoff win since 1995.

Fox Chapel was next in the quarterfinals, and the Wolverines advanced into the semifinals for only the second time in school history with a 52-47 win over the Foxes.

Their run came to an end against eventual runner-up Butler, 54-38, on March 1, but they nonetheless qualified for their first state tournament berth in more than 20 years.

Two of those aforementioned seniors have emerged as the leaders for Woodland Hills. Deonte Robertson and Amante Britt both average more than 15 points per game, and both were instrumental in the late stages in the wins over Mount Lebanon and Fox Chapel. Against Mount Lebanon, Robertson sank two free throws with 10 seconds left to ice that game for the Wolverines.

Robertson and Britt are not the only scorers, though, as Woodland Hills plays all-out and routinely scores more than 70 points in a game. In fact, it scored more than 80 points five times this season and once topped 90 (a 94-79 win over Penn-Trafford).

How all that running and scoring will fly against the potent Little Lions (20-4) will be one of Saturday’s big questions.

Altoona tried it, and the Mountain Lions found themselves down by more than 30 by the time the fourth quarter began in the D6 championship.

MATCHUP HEADACHES 

All season, State College has relied on the scoring of senior Tommy Sekunda and junior Drew Friberg. Both are over 6-foot-5, both can score from inside or out, and both are matchup headaches for opponents.

But like all good teams, State College has been developing other scorers, and if a team (like Altoona) crowds Sekunda and Friberg, the Little Lions have many other options. Keaton Ellis, Ryan McNulty, Brandon Clark and Tommy Friberg combine for more than 27 points per game, and all of them are especially good in transition.

The difference against Woodland Hills may come on the defensive end of the floor, however. The Little Lions turned the heat up on Altoona and forced the Mountain Lions into enough bad shots and mistakes to turn that game into a rout. State College could well be planning to follow the lead of Butler and try to trap the Wolverines into more of a half-court chess match.