A golden father-daughter moment

After each North Catholic girls basketball player was announced for winning the WPIAL Class 4A championship Saturday, coach Molly Rottmann draped a gold medal around their necks. Then Rottmann’s assistant coaches got the gold treatment.

When the final assistant coach was announced, Rottmann draped the gold medal around his neck, gave him a big hug and then a kiss on the cheek.

It was a golden father-daughter moment.

North Catholic defeated Blackhawk for the title at Petersen Events Center and Rottmann tied a WPIAL record for most titles by a girls coach with 11. The guy who has been by her side on the bench for all 11 is Rottmann’s father, Bill Larkin.

The father-daughter coaching combo is one of the neat little stories inside the bigger story of what is one of the most successful girls programs in any sport in WPIAL history. North Catholic has won 22 WPIAL girls basketball titles.

Bill Larkin is 83 and still coaching. He been with his daughter for her entire head coaching career, including two years at Montour in the late 1990s. Rottmann, who was Molly Larkin when she was a star player at North Catholic, is in her 25th season at North Catholic.

Her 11 titles tie her with Don Barth, who, coincidentally, was Rottmann’s coach at North Catholic.

“Every year, he says, ‘It’s my last year,’ ” Rottmann said of her father. “I tell him, ‘Please don’t.’ It means the world to me to have him still with me. It really does. You don’t have your parents forever and I still have my dad coaching with me.”

Bill Larkin uses a cane to get around. And he may not be quite as vocal as he used to be. But don’t think that the man lacks vigor these days.

“Sometimes we fight like cats and dogs. I mean, sometimes it might get heated on the bench or at practice,” Rottmann said with a laugh. “But I’m happy that he’s still challenging me.

“He gets a little frustrated these days because he can’t do as much physically. He used to like to show things to players physically. But he’ll still say at practice, ‘I need this player or that player for five minutes to show her something.’ ”

Rottmann was only 24 years old when she was given a head coaching position at Montour. She went 8-39 in two years and was let go. Two years later, in 1998, she became North Catholic’s coach.

“I came right out of college to a [Class] 4A program at Montour. I wanted someone I could trust,” Rottmann said. “My dad said he would absolutely help. He’s been with me ever since and it’s awesome.”

Cummings, Midland ties

Brandin Cummings is one of the star players for Lincoln Park, which won the WPIAL Class 4A championship Friday at Petersen Events Center.

Lincoln Park is located in the old Midland High School in Beaver Country that closed in the mid-1980s.

Midland had a WPIAL dynasty in the 1960s and ’70s and set a WPIAL record with five consecutive titles from 1973-77.

One of the stars of two of those Midland teams was Chuck Gomez — and Cummings has Gomez genes in him.

Gomez, who died a few years ago, is Cummings’ grandfather. Gomez, who wore thick black glasses when he played, was the Charles Barkley of the WPIAL back then. He was a 6-foot-4 wide body and the round mound of rebound. In Midland’s championship victories in 1975 and ’76, Gomez had 22 points and 23 rebounds in one game, 20 points and 19 rebounds in the other.

When asked if anyone has ever told him how good his grandfather was, Cummings laughed and said, “My mom preaches to me all the time. She says, ‘You know you get all this talent from the Gomezes?’ I just say, ‘OK, mom.’ ”

Cummings’ other grandfather is Jimmy Slappy, who was one of many Slappy brothers who starred at Midland. In the 1976 WPIAL final, Slappy scored 12 points.

“Gomez, Slappy, Cummings ... all those big Midland names. That’s me,” Cummings said.

Football-basketball stuff

Central Catholic’s Cole Sullivan and Aliquippa’s Cameron Lindsey will be two of the top seniors in WPIAL football next season. Both have major-college scholarship offers. But both played big roles in their team’s basketball championships.

Sullivan and Lindsey were strong on the inside. Lindsey had 19 points and 17 rebounds in Aliquippa’s win against Northgate in Class 2A. Sullivan had 16 points and 10 rebounds in Central Catholic’s win against New Castle in Class 6A. Sullivan was a junior varsity player a year ago.

Speaking of football and basketball, Aliquippa did the football-basketball sweep again. This was only the 19th time in WPIAL history that a school won football and basketball titles in the same year. But it’s the fourth time Aliquippa did it. The others were 1987-88, 2003-04 and 2015-16.

The first school to win football and basketball championships in the same year was Donora in 1944-45. Aliquippa is the only school to do it more than once.

Check this out

• Dori Oldaker won six WPIAL girls championships in 23 years of coaching at Blackhawk and Mt. Lebanon before resigning at Mt. Lebanon after last season. The main reason she stepped away was to see her daughters play. On Saturday night, Oldaker watched her daughter play a key role in South Fayette winning the WPIAL Class 5A title.

Ryan Oldaker, a freshman, came off the bench to score seven points in the Lions’ win against Oakland Catholic. Dori Oldaker’s oldest daughter, Taylor, is a junior on South Fayette’s team.

• North Allegheny’s Jasmine Timmerson set a Class 6A championship game record with 30 points Friday against Upper St. Clair.

• OLSH’s Rocco Spadafora made six 3-pointers in Friday’s WPIAL Class 3A game and tied a championship record, held by three other players.

• The PIAA playoffs start Friday. First-round games will be played at the home of the team at the top of the bracket, provided their gym has enough seating to play host to a state playoff game. Beginning with the second round, all games will be played at neutral sites.

• The 29 points scored by Central Catholic’s Dante DePante was the most in a Class 6A championship.

Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1975 and Twitter @mwhiteburgh.