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PIAA Basketball Championships: First WPIAL team to capture basketball, football titles in same school year
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Jeannette's Jordan Hall, left, drives on Strawberry Mansion's Marcus Grimes in yesterday's PIAA Class AA final.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Terrelle Pryor grabbed the championship trophy and ran with it into the Jeannette fans. Pryor passed the trophy to teammate Shaw Sunder. Then a few other players got a grasp on the hardware.

The postgame antics were symbolic. They imitated what had transpired in the previous two hours.

Pryor led the charge to a PIAA Class AA basketball title, but the "other" Jeannette players had a big hand in this history-making day.

Jeannette went to overtime before defeating Philadelphia Strawberry Mansion, 76-72, to win the championship at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center.

Pryor had 23 points, but Shaw Sunder and Jordan Hall also played huge roles in the victory, combining for 37 points.

With the win, Jeannette becomes the first school from the WPIAL to win PIAA football and basketball titles in the same school year. The PIAA football championships started in 1988.

Jeannette (25-4) used seven players against Strawberry Mansion (23-6) and all were starters on the football team.

"I don't think people realize what these kids have done. I don't think these kids realize themselves what they've accomplished," Jeannette basketball coach Jim Nesser said. "I think maybe when they look back five to 10 years from now, they'll say it was an unbelievable ride."

Sunder and Hall made sure the ride had a happy ending. Sunder, a 6-foot-4 senior guard/forward, had 21 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Hall, a 5-9 junior guard, had 16 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals. Senior guard Moziah Harris also pitched in with 10 points.

In the overtime, Jeannette scored the first six points to take control. Strawberry Mansion, a Philadelphia Public League team, never got closer than four.

Sunder had three 3-pointers and Hall two. Maybe the most surprising development of the game was this: Pryor isn't invincible and doesn't always have the golden touch. Strawberrry Mansion tied the game, 60-60, when Darren Lawrence scored with 22 seconds left. Pryor, the all-everything 6-6 senior, took the ball and ran the clock down before driving into the lane. But his shot failed to hit the rim. Thirty seconds earlier, Pryor missed two free throws that would have given Jeannette a four-point lead.

"We're so used to him always coming through and carrying the team, it was almost like a relief to see he missed," Sunder said, laughing. "Not a relief. That's the wrong word. But it was just something to see he's human and not always the hero."

Pryor struggled at the free-throw line, going 9 of 19. But he still had 23 points. He also finished with 8 rebounds, 5 blocked shots, 4 assists and 4 steals. Pryor also surpassed Blackhawk's Brandon Fuss-Cheatham and Yough's Ben McCauley and moved into eighth place on the all-time WPIAL scoring list with 2,285 points.

Pryor was key on defense, too. Strawberry Mansion's Dwayne Davis, a Morehead State recruit, had 19 points in the first three quarters. So Nesser had Pryor guard Davis in the fourth quarter and overtime, and Davis made only 3 of 7 shots. The 6-4 guard/forward finished with 28 points and senior guard/forward Eddie Frazier added 16.

Pryor gave an update on his college situation. The nation's No. 1 football recruit said he will make his decision sometime this week. He said he has narrowed his list to two schools, but would not say what two. He had listed Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan and Oregon as his finalists.

Pryor left an everlasting mark on high school athletics in Western Pennsylvania. But this was not a one-man show. Pryor, Sunder, Hall, Harris, Kenny Grant, Cameron Baradziej and Dane Vaughan were the seven players who saw time yesterday.

They were the core of a football-basketball group that should go down in WPIAL lore.

"They're just an unbelievable group of kids," Nesser said.

Mike White can be reached at mwhite@post-gazette.com or at 412-263-1975.
First published on March 16, 2008 at 12:00 am
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