North Xtra: North Catholic girls hurdle difficult course
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North Catholic's Courtney Wolosik goes up for a shot while being defended by Riverview's Mary Andrejko in a game earlier this season.
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Of all the teams Molly Rottman has coached, she likes this year's North Catholic girls basketball squad because it has looked adversity in the eye and not blinked.
"I like this team's tenacity," Rottman said as the team prepared for its first playoff game against West Greene in the WPIAL Class A tournament on Wednesday night at Moon Area High School.
The top-seeded Trojanettes were 17-5 overall before that game against the Pioneers, who had to defeat Frazier, 51-31, Saturday in a preliminary-round game to advance into the round of 16.
A victory against West Greene would advance North Catholic into the quarterfinals against the winner of the game between Carmichaels and St. Joseph on Saturday at a time and site to be determined.
"We've been in some tough games, and we've been down," said Rottman, who has coached the Trojanettes since the 1998-99 season. "Even when we were down by a lot to Seton-LaSalle [an 86-63 loss in the regular-season finale], we never threw in the towel and we played hard. This is a team that's not going to give up."
North Catholic had two starters, point guard Lauren Wolosik and her older sister, Courtney, sidelined for several games at the same time.
Courtney Wolosik, a 5-foot-8 senior forward from Brighton Heights, had a scratched cornea about a minute into the Trojanettes' opener with Oakland Catholic on Dec. 9. She was out for seven games, returning for the contest with Riverview on Jan. 2.
Lauren, a 5-10 junior guard, had begun the season with an ailing right ankle, then rolled her left ankle two days before the Blackhawk game Dec. 22. She missed that game and two in the North Allegheny tournament.
While she was sidelined, North Catholic went 1-2 with non-section losses to Class AAA power Blackhawk and Class AAAA playoff qualifier North Allegheny and a victory against Class AAAA Fox Chapel.
First Published February 23, 2012 12:00 am
