The Tyrone Lady Eagles (21-1) will face the Southmoreland Scotties (18-4) in the first round of the PIAA Class 4A State Playoffs this Wednesday at the Tyrone Middle School gym.

The Southmoreland girls return to the state playoffs after reaching the second round two years ago where they lost to Lancaster Catholic, 64-56, just before the pandemic ended the 2020 season.

This season the Scotties are the fourth seed from the WPIAL. They were projected as a second seed but were upset by the Knoch Knights 56-45 in the WPIAL semifinals, who then lost to the WPIAL champions Blackhawk Cougars.

In the WPIAL, there is no consolation game, so the team that lost to the WPIAL champion is the three seed, and the team that lost to the runner-up receives the four seed.

The Scotties are a defense-oriented team with a lot of height inside.

Defensively they are led by 5-11 senior Gracie Spadaro and junior 6-footers Maddie Moore and Delaynie Morvosh.

“We like to be active on [the defensive] end of the floor, aggressive and use our length,” Scotties coach Amber Cernuto recently told TribLive. “We’re not scoring a lot of points, so we rely on our defense. We try to stress keeping teams to 30-35 points.”

In the regular season, the Scotties did just that – holding eight teams in the competitive WPIAL conference to under 30 points, and allowing an average of only 30.5 points per game this season.

The Scotties usually play a man defense but will occasionally drop into zone.

Offensively the Scotties are led by Spadaro and 5’8” junior point guard Olivia Cernuto.

Spadaro is a career 1000 point scorer and will continue her basketball career next season at IUP. Cernuto is on pace to score 1000 points with over 700 career points at the end of the regular season.

The team is coached by second-year head coach Amber Cernuto, who is also the mother of junior Olivia Cernuto.

The winner of Wednesday’s 7 pm tip will punch their ticket to the Sweet 16, facing either WPIAL Champion Blackhawk or sixth seeded Eastern York from District 4.