Looking at Eastern York-South Fayette
(Video courtesy of Daily Record/Sunday News photographer Bil Bowden) When I spoke to Eastern York's Larry Fisher at his team's practice on Thursday, the coach had four game tapes of South Fayette waiting at his house. He and his assistants planned to retreat back to Fisher's house after practice for what would surely be an extended study session. One thing seems certain: When Fisher and his team make the long trek to Hollidaysburg for Friday's 7 p.m. PIAA Class AAA quarterfinal, they'll meet a stout Lions teams that has been through plenty of these games before. South Fayette (24-2) returns four starters from last year's Class AA state championship squad. (The Lions moved up a classification before this season.) That group includes 6-foot-6 senior wing Mike Lamberti (17.6 ppg, 8.3 rpg) and 6-0 senior points guard Pat Zedreck (15.2 ppg, 7.7 apg). Senior Nick Elder and Christian Brumbaugh both average around eight points. In other words, South Fayette sounds a little bit like Eastern -- a good point guard-wing combo, with maybe a bit more scoring balance in its lineup. After the jump, I've posted a small sampling of what Fisher and a few of his players had to say about South Fayette and his team during our interview today. I'll be driving up to Hollidaysburg tomorrow night, and will try to tweet updates on the @GameTimePA account. ____________________________________ Eastern York coach Larry Fisher On South Fayette: It just really looks like we're going to put two teams together who mirror each other. It looks like they get a little bit more scoring out of their other three. We have to be ready to match that with our guys. Our guys are capable, we've shown that. ... We can't have another Andrew and Austin night like last game for three quarters. On his team's secondary scoring, and sophomore Dalton Reichard, specifically: What happens is, if Dalton takes a 3 and misses that 3, then he starts thinking. You see it against (Archbishop Carroll) -- he makes one, then he makes two more. He's just a young kid growing with his confidence. He still needs that quick, easy score to give him the confidence to shoot it again.(Andrew Nicholas) doesn't know how many he's missed, and he doesn't care. That's the difference between a true scorer and someone who's trying to get there. On his team's defense, and its role in the Golden Knights' run: It's the biggest difference in us continuing to play or not. If we don't play hard defense, we'd have been sitting home awhile ago. Senior wing Andrew Nicholas On the double-teams and different defense he's had to face in the postseason: Once you get into these kind of games, the well-coached teams find ways to win. I just gotta play through it. Sometimes I worry about the ref's call. From now on I gotta focus and not worry about the refs and play through it. Sophomore guard Dalton Reichard On how much the team needs he and Eastern's other secondary scorers to contribute: Just like Archbishop Carroll. We all start hitting, we're just a completely different team. When we're all involved, we can play with anybody. When we struggle, that's when we rely on (Nicholas and Austin Tillotson) and the double teams come.