Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League

One of the most talented teams in Western Pennsylvania history, the 2000-01 Oakland Catholic girls’ basketball team saw eight of its 12 student-athletes play college basketball – five at the NCAA Division I level – and captured WPIAL and PIAA titles at the 4A classification. The Eagles, coached by 2007 WPIAL Hall of Fame inductee Suzie McConnell-Serio, went 31-1 on the season, posting an average margin of victory of 32.0 points per game, with six of those victories coming by 50 points or more. Oakland Catholic won its third WPIAL crown in a run of four straight (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002) with a 66-48 triumph against Ambridge, and avenged a season-opening defeat with a 70-52 victory over Council Rock in the PIAA final. The Eagles finished No. 20 in the final StudentSports.com Fab 50 National Rankings, and saw Meg Bulger and Amy Kunich garner All-America accolades. Bulger, a 2016 WPIAL Hall of Fame inductee, went on to enjoy an All-American career at West Virginia University, and was joined in the collegiate ranks by Oakland Catholic teammates Dena DeIuliis (Robert Morris University), Amy Kunich (University of Pittsburgh), Christiana Lackner (Harvard University), Meredith McDonough (Allegheny College), Renee Shehady (Bethany College), Audrey Tabon (University of Illinois), and Meghan Vasilisin (Allegheny College). Also on the team were Meghan Boyle, Kathleen McKeegan, Ashley Ross, and Beth Ward. Boyle attended the University of Notre Dame and competed on the rowing team, McKeegan and Ward received academic scholarships to Yale University and Johns Hopkins University, respectively, and Ross attended Howard University and is currently a sports reporter for CBS.