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PIAA Class 3A Boys Championship Preview: Devon Prep vs. Aliquippa

03/24/2022, 9:45pm EDT
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The PIAA Class 3A boys championship doesn’t just pit eastern Pennsylvania against the west, the PCL against the WPIAL. It’s also a match up of two teams with completely different athletic backgrounds, at least when it comes to their hardwood prowess.

Aliquippa, the No. 3 seed out of District 7 — also known as the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, which encompasses just about every public school in the counties surrounding Pittsburgh — starts five non-seniors who are all standouts on the team’s state championship football squad, switching over to the hardwood only in the nick of time for the season.

Devon Prep, on the other hand, has almost all basketball-focused talent, a group that’s been preparing for this moment in offseason leagues and events since last spring. It’s a program that has seen a rapid rise in status since joining the Philadelphia Catholic League four years ago, head coach Jason Fisher developing a group that doesn’t have the D-I talent the rest of the PCL stocks up but has been able to compete with all of them.


Jason Fisher (above) has guided Devon Prep from Bicentennial afterthought to the state chamiponship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

They’re separate paths that will meet on Saturday afternoon, 2:30 PM at the GIANT Center in Hershey.

Aliquippa’s season didn’t even start until Dec. 17, eight days after the Quips won the PIAA 4A football title. They started slow, losing three of their first six, and their record was just 8-6 after a 41-point loss to 5A finalist New Castle on Jan. 25. But they won nine of their next ten, losing only to Shady Side Academy in the WPIAL semifinals, to qualify for the state tournament.

“The more we played, the better we got,” head coach Nick Lackovitch said. “A lot of the young mistakes were eliminated [...] it just came together.

“Because of the long football season, we’ve been kind of playing catch-up the whole year.”

Though Lackovitch’s rotation features mostly future gridiron stars, he’s got some seriously high-level athletes to work with. Cameron Lindsey, a 6-3 wing, is one of four sophomores in the starting lineup, along with Brandon Banks, Jayce Williams, and Quintin Goode; junior D.J. Walker is the fifth. Lindsay is a high-level linebacker prospect with offers from Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia and more; Walker (a safety) and Banks (a corner) also have multiple D-I offers already.

They’re playing for a program that’s turned out its fair share of football studs, including recent NFLers Darrelle Revis, Ty Law and Jonathan Baldwin, plus legendary coach Mike Ditka.

If Aliquippa (21-8) wins on Saturday, it’ll be just the fifth-ever school to capture the football-basketball doubleheader, according to Tribune-Review Live. The Quips won their last title in 2016, defeating future Bowling Green standout Daeqwon Plowden and Mastery Charter 68-49 to capture the old AA title in the four-classification system.

“I don’t know if you can ever predict that you’ll be in the state championship game,” Lackovitch said, “but I felt that we could definitely make a run at it.”

The Quips are in the championship after beating Brookville (53-50), Neshannock (53-45), Avonworth (64-49) and South Allegheny (57-55) to get to the championship. Devon Prep has also faced its share of close calls, beating Dock Mennonite (76-47), Columbia (76-73), West Catholic (60-51) and Holy Redeemer (73-72) in overtime to get to the program’s first-ever state championship.


IV Pettit (above) is Devon Prep's leading scorer at more than 15 ppg. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Tide (18-7) might not have any future Division I athletes in its current starting group (it’s possible), but it has plenty who will be playing college hoops at some level. Senior guard Allen Cieslak (11.4 ppg) is a Susquehanna University commit, while classmate and leading scorer Argel ‘IV’ Pettit (15.3 ppg) has been on college radars at multiple levels for some time.

Then there’s a pair of junior wings, Lucas Orchard and Jacen Holloway. Orchard, 6-4, is the team’s second-leading scorer (14.8 ppg), its leading assist man (3.6/game) and a strong outside shooter, a terrific dribble-drive decision-maker; the muscular 6-3 left Holloway (13.6 ppg) is above 40% from deep and adds 5.6 rpg. 

Throw in sophomore point guard Ty Mishock (4.9 ppg), and it’s a starting five that moves and shares the ball as well as anyone, averaging just shy of 15 assists per game as a unit and more than eight 3-pointers per contest. Tyler Scarpulla, Ben Costello, Jake Kenny and Zane Conlon all come off the bench in varying roles.

“I tell you what, [they’re] very impressive,” said Lackovitch, a 1979 Aliquippa grad. “They play very hard, very fast, they really like to break you down off the dribble, kick it out, whoever’s man helps, they like to kick it out to that person, they make the extra pass all the time, they’re a very impressive team.”

It’s a group that Fisher’s pushed to play high-level competition all spring and summer long, from spring and summer leagues, winning the high-level PW summer leagues, to team camps in June, shootouts in August and September and October, more fall leagues, and then preseason scrimmages. 


Lucas Orchard (above) is Devon's assist leader and second on the team in scoring. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Fisher estimates his team has played 150 games since the end of last season until this point. It’s perhaps more accurate to say he’s got a group that’s pushed to play in all of it.

They’ve gone up against some of the best programs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and beyond, getting all on their deep roster a healthy dose of playing time, giving some promising youngsters a taste of the system they’d be expected to execute at a high level in a year or two.

“We want to provide them opportunities to play, and these kids constantly want to play,” the ninth-year head coach said, “so we’ve come up with a system where they’re doing things for skill work, for strength and as a team, year-round. And they want more and more of it, so we continue to get more and more.”

That Devon Prep has found this level of success isn’t quite as surprising as it was last season, when the Tide went from a cellar-dwelling squad overmatched in a new league to the PCL semifinals, catching just about everybody in the region flat-footed.

The PCL was ready this time of year, Devon Prep finishing in the middle of the pack in the Catholic League, though much more confident that they belonged than ever before, nobody taking them lightly anymore.

Non-league wins over the likes of Parkland and Reading, plus beating tough league foes like Cardinal O’Hara and Archbishop Carroll, mean the Tide are ready for anything Aliquippa can throw at them.

“We’ve played teams very similar to them already — we’ve played Reading, we’ve played Bonner, teams that are very tough, they have an edge to them,” Fisher said. “We have an idea of what to expect, but when you get out on the floor you’ll figure it out quickly if what you prepared for is going to be good enough.”


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