In area high school basketball annals, there is no doubt -- the 1979 season stands alone.
The Ford City boys team was the WPIAL and PIAA runner-up, Valley High School's boys won the state championship, the Burrell boys came within seconds of winning the WPIAL title and Franklin Regional had its girls team win the WPIAL and the PIAA titles.
Even with all the accomplishments, the season took some strange twists and turns.
Ford City, which won Section 13-AA, breezed by playoff opponents Clairton and Riverside to set up a matchup with Midland in the WPIAL final. The Sabers appeared poised to win the school's first championship since 1948, but Midland's Roosevelt Kirby launched an off-balance shot from 35 feet that banked in at the buzzer, giving Midland its seventh and final WPIAL title in overtime, 48-47.
"To lose in that kind of way crushed us," said Sabers guard Brian Hobaugh, an outstanding baseball player who spent several seasons in the Minnesota Twins organization. "I thought 99 times out of 100 he doesn't make that shot. But that got us fired up to go into the PIAAs, hoping for a rematch with Midland."
But the rematch never came. Midland lost to Riverside in the second round. Meanwhile, Ford City regrouped and defeated Sharpsville, Redbank Valley, Girard and Bishop Boyle, setting up the state title game against York Catholic.
But York Catholic owned the night at the Civic Arena, winning, 67-48.
Meanwhile, Valley had to win a tiebreaker game against Fox Chapel before a standing-room-only-crowd at the Penn State-New Kensington Fieldhouse to claim the section championship. Eight days later, Burrell knocked off the Vikings, 50-48, in a classic Class AAA quarterfinal game before 7,040 fans at the Civic Arena.
"We, at Burrell, always liked to say -- Valley won the states, but we beat Valley two out of three," said then-Bucs guard Brian Sharick, now the Burrell girls basketball coach.
For Valley, Fox Chapel and the other two quarterfinal losers, there was a mini-tournament to decide the fifth and sixth berths for the PIAA playoffs. After the Burrell loss, Valley defeated Chartiers Valley to qualify for the PIAA playoffs and never lost again.
"That (qualifying) tournament was very strange," Valley guard Ron McNabb said. "But it was beneficial to us. Billy Varner and I had a team meeting. We were down, but we told everybody to keep playing."
After the Valley game, Burrell had to erase a 29-14 deficit against Ringgold in the semifinals, finally pulling out a grueling, 64-62 double-overtime victory. In the championship game, the Bucs had enough left to lead favored Beaver Falls by five points with 1:05 left. But three Beaver Falls baskets in the final minute beat Burrell, 55-54.
By the time the PIAA opener rolled around five nights later, a drained Burrell squad traveled to Edinboro University and had nothing left, dropping a 68-58 decision to Erie Strong Vincent.
"It was such a heart-breaking loss to Beaver Falls, we played about as bad as we could play at Edinboro," Sharick said. "It was more mentally than physically draining."
The same night, Valley beat a tall Altoona team, 63-59, in the PIAA opening round. The Vikings stayed hot, defeating Pittsburgh South Hills before shocking defending state champion Schenley, 75-45. A narrow victory over Beaver Falls preceded the state title game victory over Allentown's William Allen High School, 66-61, at the Civic Arena in front of 7,131 people.
The same season, Franklin Regional's girls team, led by senior forwards Pam Miklasevich and Cheryl Ellison, won the WPIAL title over North Hills and the state title over Lancaster McCaskey, often playing as the preliminary game to the Valley boys.
"We ended up playing a lot of games after Franklin Regional," McNabb said. "We rooted for them, and they often stayed and rooted for us. There was so much talent around -- four of our five starters played college ball."
The Apollo-Ridge and Riverview girls also made the PIAA playoffs that season, along with the Fox Chapel boys.
In another season with strong local teams, Ford City defeated Har-Brack for the WPIAL Class A title and Verona beat Bellevue in Class B in 1938.
But future teams will have a hard time equalling what was done in 1979.
