It has been a good school year for ending unsightly streaks at Ellwood City High School.

First the football team defeated New Brighton to snap a 31-game losing streak, the longest in the WPIAL at the time.

Then two weeks ago, the Wolverines girls' basketball team defeated Center, 49-43, to end a 104-game section losing streak.

Ellwood City had not won a section game since beating Beaver, 54-52, in overtime on Jan. 17, 2002. The last time the Wolverines won more than one section game was 1999 when they finished 4-8 in Section 2-AAA.

The last time they made the WPIAL playoffs was 1998 when they placed third in Section 2-AAA with a 10-4 record.

It should be pointed out that while Ellwood City has had problems winning section games, it has picked up some non-section victories. The Wolverines have won nine games this season, had five victories last season and six the previous year.

"We are 8-3 outside the section," Ellwood City coach Bill Gottuso said. "We just happen to be in a section that has two of the top teams in the WPIAL in Hopewell and New Castle in it. They're both so strong they should make it to the [WPIAL] semifinals and then you have Blackhawk and Ambridge, who are both pretty good."

One reason Ellwood City has struggled in recent years is that it is one of the smallest schools in terms of girls' enrollment in the WPIAL in Class AAA.

According to the PIAA's enrollment figures for the current school year, Ellwood City has 270 girls in the top three grades. The cutoff between Class AAA and AA is 263. Only three WPIAL schools in Class AAA have fewer girls than the Wolverines -- Waynesburg Central (266), Valley (265) and Mount Pleasant (264).

"We thought maybe we'd drop down for the next [PIAA two-year cycle] but we will still be in Triple-A," Gottuso said. "Just about all the other sports [at the school] are in Class AA except girls' basketball."

And Ellwood City's location on the line between Beaver and Lawrence counties also makes it tough. Geographically, it fits in with the other teams in Section 2-AAA.

"Putting us in a different section wouldn't make sense because we'd have to travel about an hour for games," Gottuso said.

All is not gloom and doom despite the fact Ellwood City lost to Blackhawk and New Castle after beating Center. Gottuso, who is in the fourth year of his second stint as head coach, does not have a senior on the roster, is starting five juniors and has a couple of freshmen who are seeing varsity action. His junior varsity comprises nine freshmen.

He said the look of joy on his players' faces and watching them celebrate after the victory against Center made it all worthwhile.

"Anybody can come out and play when you're winning," said Gottuso, who previously was the school's head coach from 1983 to '88 and has been with the program for 23 years. "But when you lose for that long of a period of time, it makes it tough to come to practice. But our players have never complained."

Ellwood City finished the season with a respectable 9-12 overall record and 1-9 section mark.

Gottuso hopes his team can win more that just one section game next season but doesn't see it challenging for a playoff spot anytime soon.

"Realistically, I have to say no but you never know," he said. "There have been other places where they have struggled and then one or two players come along and things turn around. We've got some good, young players ... we'll see."

Those who have watched the Blackhawk High School boys' team the past three decades have been surprised this season to see the Cougars using a zone defense.

A staple of Blackhawk during coach John Miller's era and even after current coach Andy Hedrick took over has been tenacious man-to-man defense. But this season the Cougars have been setting up in a 1-3-1 or a 3-2 zone.

The reason?

"We're a little bigger than we have been," Hedrick said, referring to the fact he has 6-foot-4 Colin Loughner, 6-4 Dustin Pringle, 6-3 Tim Denman and 6-2 Tyler Damazo in his starting lineup. "But we're not as quick as we have been so we decided to go to the zone and it's worked out well for us."

No question. The Cougars (14-7) tied Hopewell for the Section 2-AAA title with a 10-2 mark.

Center coach Mark Jula has gone on record as saying his Trojans shoot better at home. Maybe that was the reason Center had a horrendous shooting game in a loss at Hopewell last Friday.

The Trojans missed their first 12 3-point attempts, made just one 3-pointer in the game and finished one of 24 from outside the arc.

Center finished behind Hopewell and Blackhawk in the section standings and still qualified for the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs. Center's problem is that teams do not play any home games in the WPIAL tournament.

The Monaca boys' team (4-16, 1-7) has struggled this season and has won only four games. There are those who would argue the Indians don't deserve to be in the playoffs and if this wasn't the school's final year of existence, we would probably agree.

But there will not be a Monaca High School in 2010-11 because of the merger with Center to form Central Valley, and Monaca is a school that has produced outstanding basketball players such as Billy Zopf and Brad and Mickey Davis.

The section games between Monaca and Midland in the 1970s were legendary and there were seasons when Midland was winning consecutive WPIAL titles and going to the PIAA championship games that Monaca might have been the second-best team in the PIAA.

So, why not have Monaca play the final game in the school's history in the WPIAL playoffs?

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.