Patience and persistence have paid off for the New Castle girls' basketball team, which, tomorrow will play Chartiers Valley (20-6) in a WPIAL Class AAAA semifinal at Canon-McMillan.

It is the first trip to the semifinals for the Hurricanes (22-4), who are in the playoffs for the second consecutive season after making the playoffs only once in 13 years between 1990-2002.

The Red Hurricane's recent success hasn't happened over night, but rather, the seeds were planted seven years ago when Red Hurricane coach Luann Grybowski started a grade-school program for girls in the district.

"The senior class was the first class of fourth-graders in that program," said Grybowski, who is in her 13th season as the Red Hurricane coach. "They've been playing together now for a long time and they love to play the game. They've played a lot of basketball so they are very experienced. Another big step was when one of my assistants Joe Spino, started working with our junior high program. He's done a great job with them.

"Building a strong feeder program took some time, but it has certainly paid off."

The fact that New Castle is in the semifinals would not have been much of a surprise after last season, when they finished 19-7 and advanced to the quarterfinals. The Hurricanes had six of their top eight players and all three of their top scorers returning.

But starting point guard Tarina Nixon, who was a first-team all-section pick, moved to Arizona in August leaving a big hole in the starting lineup. Then, four games into the season her replacement, Nesha Hambrick, moved to Cleveland.

Grybowski said that losing key players has hurt, but that the team has responded and rallied around each other.

"Defense is what we really do best," Grybowski said. "And this is a great group of kids. They play well together, they have always been team oriented and they believe in each other. Each night it is someone different leading us in scoring and we have six girls who could score double figures. So everybody has stepped up and that's why we're still playing."

Senior Ashley Wise leads the Red Hurricane in scoring at 12.4 points per game and freshman Jaleesa Sams averages 12.1. The other seniors who play key roles are Maria Joseph, Jaleah Robinson and Jordan Johnson.

Chartiers Valley, which lost to New Castle, 49-45, in a first-round game last year, is led by Ohio University-bound senior Lauren Revesz.