Predicting the winners

The incredibly massive WPIAL basketball playoffs begin tonight and I'll be at West Allegheny High School taking in a boys-girls doubleheader.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the Sewickley Academy-Bentworth Class A boys game for several reasons.

First, the Bearcats were the Observer-Reporter's No. 2 team in the classification at one point and were ranked through most of the year before a late-season slump greatly affected their postseason seedinng. Led by the Kennedy brothers, the Bearcats are a senior-drive group but they don't have much postseason experience. Second, this will be my first glimpse of Sewickley Academy's Tom Droney, a 6-5 sophomore guard who already has caught the eye of Pitt, among others. He may be the best player in the bracket.

So, with the large number of local teams playing, I figured why not predict winners in the local games while there's still a decent amount of area reps remaining.

Here we go (all games Friday or Saturday):

Boys
Class AAAA
Canon-McMillan over Shaler, Peters Township over Franklin Regional
Class AAA
Hampton over Ringgold
Class AA
Burgettstown over Bishop Canevin
Class A
Carmichaels over St. Joseph's, Union over Mapletown, California over Elderton, Sewickley Academy over Bentworth

Girls
Class AAAA
Peters Township over Fox Chapel
Class AAA
Southmoreland over McGuffey
Class AA
South Fayette over Apollo-Ridge, Wilkinsburg over Charleroi, South Park over Beth-Center
Class A
Serra Catholic over Carmichaels, Monessen over California, Quigley Catholic over Mapletown, Vincentian Academy over Avella