Blackhawk delivers on a special night for Lodovico, grabs victory over Beaver Area at home

CHIPPEWA TWP. — Alena Fusetti started her Thursday by sending a text message to her head coach.

The message from the Blackhawk High School sophomore guard to Steve Lodovico was simple. There wasn’t much that needed to be said anyway. “We got you today,” read the note.

Lodovico’s mother, Bee Bee, died in 2017 after a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. And, exactly a year prior to Thursday, Lodovico also lost his father, Mike, after he died from cancer. Thursday’s annual Hoops for Hope game honored both and raised money for the Cougars’ Alzheimer’s awareness fundraiser.

Fusetti knew how much the day meant to Lodovico, so she made a promise. That night, hours later, in a 72-51 victory over WPIAL Class 4A foe Beaver Area, she delivered.

“(Lodovico) is just like, ‘Get in a rhythm. Get in a rhythm,’” said the 5-foot-9 star combo guard after scoring 17 points and draining four 3-pointers to help the Cougars (15-0, 9-0) defeat the Bobcats (8-4, 5-2) to remain undefeated. “When he’s saying that, then I’m not even thinking about shooting. I’m just shooting — I’m just having fun.”

Perhaps Lodovico’s words were needed. Beaver Area took a three-point lead over Blackhawk into halftime and grew its lead to six points less than three minutes into the third quarter.

Beaver Area senior guard Payton List — who finished the contest with a game-high 25 points — already had tallied 15 points by halftime. The Cougars seemed to have no answer for the Bobcats’ star. Just as List had done throughout the season, she scored seemingly at will on Thursday.

But after List finished a transition layup at the 5:47 mark of the third quarter to give her team a 38-32 advantage, something clicked for the Blackhawk defense.

From that point, the Cougars went on a 12-2 run in a little more than two minutes that helped them take a four-point lead. And they didn't look back — the Bobcats never led the rest of the way.

“We were doing something a bit uncharacteristic (early in the game),” Lodovico said. “Two things: We were the team that was kind of back-pedaling, when we’re supposed to always be in attack mode. And the second thing was (that) we weren’t taking care of the ball. … Maybe (the girls) were a little bit too amped up at the beginning of the game. When they calmed down and they relaxed, they were much better.”

Blackhawk junior guard Kassie Potts, who tallied 14 of her 17 points in the second half, also played a key role in the Cougars’ turnaround.

After falling to Beaver Area twice last season, Potts said that she told herself at the start of the second half that “there was no way” that she was going to allow the Cougars to lose this one.

Blackhawk’s 21-point win marked its closest game against an in-state opponent this season (the Cougars’ previous closest PIAA wins were by 26 against Central Valley on Jan. 6 and by the same margin versus North Catholic on Jan. 15). So, with her team getting tested more than it had throughout most of the season, Potts said there was plenty for her team to learn from Thursday night’s matchup.

“I think it showed us that we can’t be cocky or overconfident,” she said. “ … It was like a (measuring stick) for us to see where we were at.”

At the end of the night, Lodovico stood outside his team’s locker room full of emotion. He said every win during this campaign has been special, but Fussetti, Potts and others delivering on a day that held extra significance in his heart meant even more.

“This is an emotional day — it means a lot,” Lodovico said. “I wish every day that I could have (my mother and father) here with me. But I know that they're watching from above, and that they’re proud of us and what we’re doing.”

Contact Parth Upadhyaya at pupadhyaya@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @pupadhyaya_.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Blackhawk delivers to beat Beaver Area on a special night for Lodovico