Sophomore guard Zion Moore leads Belle Vernon past Quaker Valley to win over Quaker Valley in WPIAL 4A first round

LEETSDALE, Pennsylvania – Belle Vernon entered the WPIAL boys basketball postseason having lost four of its final five games of the regular season but the Leopards knew that once postseason play began, each team who qualified is 0-0.

Behind a game-high 32 points by sophomore point guard Zion Moore, No. 10 Belle Vernon cruised past seventh-seeded Quaker Valley 81-55 in the first round of the WPIAL 4A boys basketball playoffs Monday night.

Moore, who played at Ringgold as a freshman, entered the playoffs averaging 23.4 points per game. In his first playoff appearance, he showed just what he could do.

“It was fun,” Moore said referring to his first playoff game. “I was just getting the right shots, shooting the ball well and my confidence grew as the game went on as well.”

Moore scored 12 of his game-high 32 points in the first quarter, as the Leopards led 20-14.

The Quakers did a better job limiting Moore’s shots in the second quarter as he only scored six points in the second quarter.

While the Quaker Valley defense was busy with Moore, the offense was finding its groove. Junior guard Joey Coyle scored 10 of his team-high 20 points in the second quarter as the Leopards lead was shortened to 35-31 at halftime.

However, once the second half began, that’s when the Leopards decided that in order to take over the game and run away with it was by playing good defense which is something Leopards player Quinton Martin preaches to his teammates.

“You win games by playing defense and that’s a proven fact,” said Martin, who scored 15 points. “I think today we played well as a team, and we just came together, trusted one another and we did our thing.”

Belle Vernon outscored Quaker Valley 46-24 in the second half as the Leopards limited the Quakers to just seven points in the fourth quarter.

Quaker Valley won the WPIAL 4A title last season before losing to Neumann-Goretti in the state championship game.

Despite the Quakers losing four starters from last year’s team to graduation, Belle Vernon’s Alonzo Wade knew Quaker Valley was still a dangerous team.

“(Quaker Valley) has a good shooting team, they were hitting shots in the game, but we were able to minimize that (in the second half),” Wade said. “We were able to build better chemistry as the game went on and we played really good defense.”

The key for the Leopards was a good week of practice at the right time.

“We practiced real hard all week (and) that was the best week of practice we had all year,” Wade said. “We know that we can compete against any team in the WPIAL, we just haven’t shown it yet, but tonight I fell like we showed it a little bit better.”

Belle Vernon moves on to the quarterfinals, where it will play Laurel Highlands on Thursday.

Wade and Martin helped lead Belle Vernon to the WPIAL and PIAA titles oin football this past fall and hope to win both football and basketball titles in the same year.

“That’s something I had always wanted to since I was a little boy saying I won a state title in football and basketball,” Wade said. “So it’s pretty important to me and doing it in the same year would be amazing.