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Sharon’s late rally not enough vs. Lincoln Park
Tigers defeated in PIAA 3A state semifinals
By Brian Dzenis
NEW CASTLE, PA.
Sharon’s finest senior class of the 21st century went out fighting.
When it looked like Lincoln Park would cruise to Hershey for the PIAA 3A state finals, the Tigers mounted an impressive rally, but still came up short. The Leopards won the semifinal round Tuesday night, 67-58.
Lincoln Park (26-4) led by as much as 19 points near the end of the third quarter, but Sharon got as close as four points of tying the game within the final three minutes of the contest.
“With us seniors, we knew that it was possibly our last game,” Tigers forward Ethan Porterfield said. “We just wanted to go out and play for the name across our chests.”
Sharon’s four seniors — Elite Williams, Josh Torr, Frank Shaffer and Porterfield — were the first Tigers players to play for four years under coach Zach Sarver and they put together quite the run. As juniors, they led Sharon to its first District 10 title since 1991 en route to a PIAA 4A title game appearance.
“They won a lot of games for us. They invested in our program on and off the floor. Between all our offseason stuff, the elementary and youth programs — just giving back — those kids get it,” Sarver said. “They get how important that is. They get how much influence and how much of an impact that they can have on our program and hopefully that allows us to be pretty successful at a high level.”
The 6-foot-8 Porterfield will leave Sharon with more than 1,500 career points. The IUP basketball commit scored 23 points in defeat.
“There’s too many things I’ll miss [about Sharon]. It’s not one single thing,” Porterfield said. “There’s the community, the students, the colors — everything.”
Porterfield hit a 3-pointer to close out the third quarter and opened the fourth quarter with another to make the score 52-42 Lincoln Park. Sharon went on a 10-0 run before Lincoln Park’s Isaiah Smith knocked down a 3-pointer for the Leopards’ first points of the quarter.
Sharon hovered around that four-point gap until Smith hit another 3-pointer to make it 60-53 Lincoln Park with 1:27 left and that put Sharon’s bid for a second consecutive trip to Hershey to bed.
The Leopards built their lead with a 25-point second quarter. Junior forward Andre Wilder scored 18 of his team-high 28 points in the first half.
“We came out in a little bit of a zone. There were a couple of deflections and they stole it on the wing,” Sarver said. “We did a little pressure, but it’s something we can’t do for four quarters against them, but we could do that for three or four minutes.”
As productive as Wilder was for the first three quarters, he seldom touched the ball in the fourth and didn’t score until he got to the free-throw line in the final minutes of the contest.
“We put on some pressure and they kind of lost him. It was like how we lost Ethan in the first half when he didn’t get a lot of touches,” Sarver said. “We pressured them and they started taking quick shots, we got some rebounds and they lost him.”
Smith made six 3-pointers to finish with 20 points for the Leopards and Keeno Holmes added 11.
Shaffer was the only other Sharon player in double figures with 10 points.
“We came really far. These seniors turned this program around,” Porterfield said. “We know how hard we worked and I wouldn’t trade these guys for anybody in the whole state of Pennsylvania.”