SL Girls’ Championship Preview: Lourdes seeks elusive title against defending champs
Lourdes center Hannah Lokitis (Photo by Eli Doyle)
Red Raiders, Hurricanes meet for title tonight
Mike Klembara’s coaching career is loaded with great accomplishments.
** He’s served 47 years as a high school girls’ basketball coach, with 44 seasons at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional High School and three seasons at Hazleton High School.
** An amazing 842 career victories (and counting), including 811 at Lourdes.
** A whopping 14 District 4 Class A championships.
** Five appearances in the PIAA Class A championship game in Hershey.
** The PIAA Class A state championship in 1994.
Yet, there’s one thing missing from that Hall of Fame-worthy resume.
A Schuylkill League championship.
Klembara and his Red Raiders will look to check off that box tonight when they face defending champion Schuylkill Haven in the Schuylkill League girls’ basketball championship game at 6 p.m. at Martz Hall.
In the Schuylkill League final for the first time in 30 years, Lourdes (22-1) hasn’t lost since the calendar flipped to 2026. The Red Raiders have won 16 straight games, including the program’s first-ever win over North Schuylkill with a 49-32 victory in Tuesday’s semifinals.
The Hurricanes (19-4) have won 11 in a row, the latest being a 53-38 win over Mahanoy Area in Tuesday’s semifinals.
** LISTEN LIVE: If you can’t attend the game, listen to the game live on T-102 (101.9 FM) and WPPA (1360 AM / 105.9 FM) by clicking this link: https://player.aiir.com/wavt/
“It’s a great opportunity for a little school to beat a big school,” Klembara said after the Red Raiders beat North Schuylkill. “We just wanted to win. The girls knew what was in front of us, took the challenge and were successful.”
Klembara is a pretty humble coach, often praising his assistant coaches and/or talking about his players’ work ethic when asked about his coaching record and personal milestones.
He did it when the Red Raiders captured the program’s 1,000th victory Jan. 15 and he did it Tuesday after beating North Schuylkill.
And while he’s had some great teams over the years, this one might be the best of the bunch. And they’re still young.
The Red Raiders feature an entirely underclassman starting five, led by sophomore guard Kylla Sandri and 6-foot-1 junior center Hannah Lokitis. Junior Onaleigh Barnes provides outside shooting while 5-11 sophomore forward Sophia Karlovich and 5-10 junior forward Vivian Reiprish give Lourdes three dominant players in the block.
Freshman guard Karmen Schroyer is the first one off the bench and is a skilled passer, leading the team in assists. Senior guard Luci Shingara, sophomore Adalynn Schu and freshman Alyssa Albert provide depth.
Lourdes showed great poise and resiliency in the win over North Schuylkill, weathering an early flurry by the Spartans in the first half before dominating the game defensively in the second half.
Lokitis finished with 17 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks, while Sandri had 12 points and Karlovich collected 10 points and eight rebounds.
“They are very unselfish,” Klembara said of his team. “We have some people who shine because of assists or turnovers. We don’t have that girl that scores 15-18 points a game or anything like that. We have girls that have 10 assists a game, or 10 steals or 20 rebounds. We do the little things that make us successful.”
To capture that elusive Schuylkill League crown, Lourdes is going to have to dethrone a Schuylkill Haven squad that has won eight straight games at Martz Hall and hasn’t lost a Schuylkill League playoff game in four tries.
The Hurricanes also weathered an early storm in the semifinals, trailing Mahanoy Area 16-7 in the first quarter before closing the first half on a 20-2 run to take a 31-21 halftime lead.
Haven’s lone senior, Audrey Hutchinson, led all scorers with 19 points while Mckenna Runkle compiled 13 points and 16 rebounds.
“Martz Hall feels like a home away from home. We all feel pretty comfortable here,” Hutchinson said after Tuesday’s win over Mahanoy Area. “We’d like to keep that going Friday, show up and get that big win.”
The game is a rematch of last year’s Schuylkill League quarterfinal, which Schuylkill Haven won 48-29. Runkle scored six of her team-high 11 points in a 12-3 run to close the first half that gave the Hurricanes a 23-9 halftime advantage.
Haven held Lokitis to just seven points, although she pulled down 16 rebounds and had four blocked shots. The Hurricanes guards’ pressure defense forced 14 first-half turnovers and limited Lourdes to just 3-for-19 shooting from the field. The Red Raiders also struggled from the foul line in the first half, hitting 1-of-8.
Lourdes rebounded in the second half, scoring 15 points in the third quarter and slicing a 16-point Haven lead to eight at 32-24. The Hurricanes then iced it with a game-clinching, 10-0 run that featured four steals and eight points by Ava Terefencko.
Both teams have grown up a lot and have gained valuable playoff experience since, adding another level of excitement to tonight’s clash.
“Last year we lost to Schuylkill Haven,” Klembara said. “(His team has) been growing up, they’ve been maturing obviously. Our coaches have been putting in extra time trying to relate the things they are doing that are weak.”
Will Lourdes claim its first-ever title?
Will Schuylkill Haven repeat?
We find out tonight.
Here’s a capsule preview of tonight’s girls’ final:
