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BASKETBALL: Westtown Girls & Boys Complete PAISAA State Championship Sweep

By Joshua Abrams. Photos: Lou Rabito & Krystal Williams, 03/07/22, 7:00PM EST

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Westtown Girls Basketball - 21-22 PAISAA Champions - PSD Photo by Krystal Williams

Photos: Lou Rabito & Krystal Williams

Story by: Josh Abrams (@jabrams1998)

PHILADELPHIA – Saturday night was one for the history books for the Westtown School, as both the top-seeded female and male Moose captured their respective state titles in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) final at La Salle University. The ladies took the floor first, defeating Penn Charter in a 51-50 nail-biter, and the gentlemen ended the night holding off Perkiomen School by a score of 46-41.

Meliah Van-Otoo’s layup off a nifty dribble move with 33 seconds remaining turned out to be the final and game-winning field goal for the Westtown girls. It capped off a thrilling contest that featured plenty of excitement and a peculiar finish.

Lady Moose head coach Fran Burbidge has been around the game of basketball for an awfully long time, but never had he seen something like the ending to the final game of his team’s long season.

“I got a text from (a friend) that said ‘I have never seen a game in which the last 10 seconds, the ball never crossed the foul line and the possession changed four different times.” said Burbidge. “It was a pretty strange ending.”

Two offensive fouls called on Westtown as well as Penn Charter needing Westtown to get to the bonus contributed to the bizarre sequence of events. The Lady Quakers had multiple opportunities to secure the victory in the last six seconds, but Aleah Snead’s free throws fell short and Kaylinn Bethea could not get her game-winning pull-up jumper to fall. Olivia Wiggins grabbed the rebound for Westtown as time expired and ran with her teammates to celebrate at half court.

Penn Charter came out of the gates ready to play, as they led 15-9 after the first frame and 29-27 at halftime. And even though it was a deficit more than worthy of overcoming, Burbidge felt the need to take the unconventional route with his halftime speech to his girls.

2022 PAISAA CHampionship Highlights - Westtown vs. Penn Charter by Josh Abrams:

Westtown head coach Fran Burbidge talks about final few minutes and gives credit to PC on a great game - Video by Josh Abrams

“At this stage, normally throughout my career... with championship games at halftime, you want to talk about what we need to do and kind of calm them down and make adjustments,” said the head coach in his third year at the helm for Westtown.

“But that wasn’t the message they got at halftime. I kind of lit into them a little bit because I thought everybody was just trying to do stuff on their own (on offense). We had no fluidity going, no spacing, and that’s not who we are. That’s not who we needed to be. So we (the coaching staff) challenged them in that sense.”

Westtown began the third quarter on an 11-3 run, with Kaylene Smikle scoring eight of her game-high 28 points during that stretch.

Penn Charter would not go away though, as they went on their own 11-0 run which included a buzzer-beating bank-shot three from Maddie Shoup.

Tied heading into the final frame, the teams would exchange baskets all quarter leading up to the highly-anticipated intense and strange ending.

“I kept on telling (the girls) during the timeouts ‘Look, this is going to be a grind it out thing.’ Burbidge said. “And fortunately for us some things went our way at the end, but some things went their way too. We could have been the team in the locker room not feeling good about ourselves. Credit to Joe (Maguire) and Penn Charter; they took advantage of every mistake we made.”

Grace Sundbuck (10 points), Van-Otoo (eight) and Helena Lasic (five) rounded out the scoring for the Lady Moose, who took home their first PAISAA state title in program history. Snead, Shoup and Bethea scored in double figures (16, 13 & 11, respectively) while Bella Toomey added nine points for the Lady Quakers.


Westtown Boys Basketball - 21-22 PAISAA Champions - PSD Photo by Lou Rabito

The boys title game might not have had as exciting of a finale, but anyone who attended the event had the luxury of seeing a hard-fought challenge between two teams loaded with high-level talent.

Quin Berger, son of Westtown boys basketball head coach Seth Berger, knocked down all five of his triples on his way to a game-high 17 points as Westtown defeated the Perkiomen School 46-41. Dereck Lively II, a Duke commit and the top overall prospect in the country, showcased his dominance on the defensive end, blocking four shots to go along with his 11 points and 12 rebounds. He and Penn State commit Jameel Brown were the catalysts behind holding Perk School’s Ryan Dunn (Virginia) and Xaivian Lee (Princeton) to just 12 points combined.

“We obviously needed to shut down (Xaivian) Lee and (Ryan) Dunn,” said the 15-year head coach Berger. “And I thought our kids really took it upon themselves to stop those two guys.”

“(Coming into the game) we told them (the kids) we thought we shoot threes better than they do,” Berger said. “So, even with a seven-footer like Dereck, we wanted to use him in the paint to give us some more semi-contested or uncontested threes and shoot freely.”

Perk School held tough throughout the entire game, and even took a couple early leads in the first quarter before Westtown extended their lead to 18-10 at the end of the frame. The Moose lead would extend to 11 at halftime by a score of 30-19. Lively’s length and size in the paint made it extremely difficult for Panthers players to get quality shots, especially in the paint. Despite being outscored 22-16 in the second half, and the lead being cut to three with four seconds showing on the clock, Westtown prevailed thanks to two free throws from Berger to ice the game.

“I said to them in the locker room that they don’t realize how special of a group they are,” Berger remarked highly of his team. 

2022 PAISAA Championship Highlights - Westtown vs. Perkiomen School by Josh Abrams:

Westtown head coach Seth Berger said he had a special group and noted Dereck Lively as the most "selfless" player he's ever coached - By Josh Abrams:

“Dereck is the most selfless superstar in high school basketball. Quin and Jameel only care about winning. Seyphon (Triplett) and Matt (Mayock) only care about winning. Wade Chiddick and Diego Uribe bought into their roles as seniors. There wasn’t one game this entire year where a kid asked me for a box score and how many points he scored," added Berger.

Certainly no doubt these kids care about winning; Westtown won their fourth state championship since 2016 and got to their eighth overall title game since 2013. It is an accomplishment not many other programs can boast, and if you ask Seth Berger, it has little to do with himself.

“We just have this group of seniors who care about each other and care about winning above all,” said Berger. “I told these guys that winning a championship gives them a lifetime relationship that they won’t appreciate until they are much older. And it’s because of their selflessness.”

It was a night that none of the Westtown faithful will ever forget.

Brown, Mayock and Triplett added eight, six and four points respectively to round out the scoring for Westtown. Lee led Perk School with 11 points, while Thomas Haugh and Sam Pohlman each scored eight points. The Panthers made their first ever appearance in the PAISAA state championship game under sixth-year head coach Thomas Baudinet.

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