Lady Gators had a great run in the 1990s
The Geibel Catholic Lady Gators joined a short list of great WPIAL teams with their run of four WPIAL Class AA titles from 1993-1996, a list of teams who dominated WPIAL girls basketball.
The list includes Penn Hills, which strung together seven consecutive WPIAL Class AAAA titles from 1986-1992, Oakland Catholic, who won four consecutive Class AAAA championships from 1999-2002, and Aliquippa, who captured four straight Class AA championships from 1987-1990.
鈥淭here was some pretty good competition back then in Class A and AA,鈥� former Geibel girls coach George Bortz recalled. 鈥淵ou always had Greensburg Central Catholic, it developed into a great rivalry. They used to come up to Geibel and it was a sellout for a girls game. They used to put bleachers up on the stage so they could get enough people in there.鈥�
Bortz took over the head coaching reins at Geibel from Terry Jamison in 1992. Prior to that he had been a fixture on the bench as an assistant coach beginning in the 1988-89 season.
Bortz came into a perfect storm when he took over as head coach of the Lady Gators.
鈥淭here was a core group of Alison Watts, Tara Cochrane, Robin Guerriere and Meggan Seighman,鈥� Bortz said. 鈥淭hey all played at St. John鈥檚. There was great chemistry. I didn鈥檛 know any of them. I never paid attention. The first year that they got to Geibel, I took over as head coach. These girls, some of them I鈥檇 never seen before. It was amazing, they had some good training because they were together coming up to high school. They meshed so well even with kids on the team that had not played with them before.鈥�
鈥淲e had a group that goes back to the days at St. John鈥檚 middle school under coach Ann Capozzi. That group included Robin Guerriere and Alison Watts and a year ahead of us was Erin Rupp,鈥� Cochrane recalled. 鈥淚f you go back to our eighth grade year at St. John鈥檚, we won the state tournament and so I think we saw the run of success coming because we knew that we had something special and we were a very talented group of young girls. We really wanted it, we worked extremely hard. It wasn鈥檛 something we did during the season. We all played AAU ball for Chris Cluss in the offseason. We worked hard during the offseason with conditioning and we all had a dream to play college sports.鈥�
鈥淭he entire team was at Geibel from when I was a freshman,鈥� Guerriere said. 鈥淲e had seniors on that team that went to St. John鈥檚 that we played with. The girls that also joined the team and met up with us at Geibel, they were from St. Mary鈥檚 or Conn-Area or St. John鈥檚 Byzantine, so it was a group of girls that not only played together, but knew each other, competed against each other in the CYO Leagues for years. It just kind of all meshed into one big group when we made it to Geibel.
鈥淚n eight grade at St. John鈥檚 it was myself, Tara Cochrane, Alison Watts, and in eighth grade we actually won the CYO state championship that was held in Pittsburgh. When we were in seventh grade, Erin Rupp was also on our team, she was a year ahead of us. When we were in seventh grade we were in Reading, Pa., participating in the CYO state championship. There was three years where that St. John鈥檚 team was participating in state championships at the Catholic school grade school level.鈥�
That core group of girls accomplished some great things at Geibel. They compiled a record of 106-9 in their four years (including the PIAA playoffs). They won WPIAL championships in 1993-94-95-96, and had undefeated seasons until falling in the PIAA playoffs in 1994 and 1995.
Geibel鈥檚 string of WPIAL championship game victories came at the expense of Greensburg Central Catholic three times: 1994 (57-49), 1995 (65-54), and 1996 (57-54) and Serra Catholic in 1993 (54-34).
鈥淚t was special to have back-to-back undefeated seasons,鈥� Cochrane explained. 鈥淧laying in the PIAA tournament was so disappointing. How can you be undefeated, have four WPIAL titles and never make it to the state finals? It was very disappointing and I think our senior year we were so motivated to do that and it didn鈥檛 happen. It鈥檚 kind of like the chink in your armor. That was the thing to keep us humble because we had experienced so much success except for that final piece.鈥�
Bortz seemed to be able to push the right buttons with the Lady Gators.
鈥淚 laughed when I read that I yelled at them so much,鈥� Bortz explained. 鈥淚 guess that was my demeanor. I was pretty tough on them. I wasn鈥檛 easy on them. We never had any of them want to quit or talk back, I never had any of that. I have to admit myself after it鈥檚 all over that I was pretty tough on them.鈥�
鈥淚 had a really good relationship with coach Bortz,鈥� Guerriere stated. 鈥淓ven to this day I still see him on a pretty regular basis. He was tough, he was fair and he knew how to get you to play. He knew the buttons to push to get the results.鈥�
Looking back Bortz takes pride in what they accomplished at Geibel.
鈥淚t means more to them at this point than it did for me,鈥� Bortz offered. 鈥淎nd, that鈥檚 the way I want it to be and I鈥檓 glad it is that way. I鈥檓 old school and I went game-to-game and all I thought about was the next game. I can remember the wins, but mostly the losses. The part that makes me happy if you look at all the wins we played up a lot. We had a lot of wins against Class AAAA and AAA teams.鈥�
鈥淲e always knew that was a unique moment in time for us,鈥� Cochrane recalled. 鈥淚 think when you鈥檙e real young you don鈥檛 realize how precious life is and that you really need to live in the moment. And, for some reason I feel like we did, we always knew that. We always knew that we had a unique opportunity.鈥�