CLARION, Pa. – Three-point shooting, turned out to be the difference in Brookville’s season-ending 44-40 loss to Neshannock in the second round of the PIAA Class 3A boys’ basketball playoffs at PennWest Clarion’s Tippin Gym.
Nehsannock was 7 of 10 from downtown while Brookville was 0-for-the-night.
“Three-point shooting for us wasn’t there,” Brookville head coach Dalton Park said. “Give them credit for pushing out on us. I thought we were going to hit a couple. They looked like they were online. They didn’t drop. If we hit one of those, it opens things up. And, I think they shot pretty well from three. That tells you we weren’t getting out, getting a hand in their faces.”
The long-range barrage by the Lancers helped them take a 39-31 lead with 4:54 to play.
But Brookville, which lost for the first time since mid-December, didn’t go away quietly.
Clayton Cook, who saw his strong Raider career come to a close, put his team on his back scoring seven straight points, five from the free-throw line, to get Brookville back within one, 39-38, with 2:24 to play.
David Kwiat put Neshannock back up three, 41-48, with a basket with 2:12 to go before Kellan Haines hit two free throws with 1:47 left to make it 41-40.
Neshannock was then terrible from the free-throw line missing five of six between the 1:25 mark and the 13.5-second mark – it was actually a stretch of 9 of 10 missed free throws in the final five minutes and change – to give Brookville a chance.
But the Raiders couldn’t buy a point, and, finally, Jack Glies hit two free throws with 3.1 seconds left to seal the win.
“We had chances at the end,” Park said. “We self-imploded on a few.”
Park believed a number of calls went against Brookville, especially in the final minute of the game when three calls that could have gone either way went Neshannock’s direction, that if any one of them had gone the Raiders’ way could have been the difference in the game.
All three were bang-bang judgment calls, but not getting one of them self a sour taste in Park’s mouth.
“Absolutely not, no breaks from (the officials) whatsoever,” Park said. “I feel there were tap fouls called against us and no tap fouls called against them as much. I am not going to turn this on the officials. We didn’t play smart. We played as hard as anyone can give. I am going to give Neshannock’s defense, what they did against us defensively, all the credit. But do I think it (the officiating) made a difference in the game? Absolutely. And they don’t want to hear it. They are so smug, they are the right guys, they have the right answers, and they don’t want to hear it. They are God.”
The first of the three calls in the last 55 seconds that had Park upset was an out-of-bounds call on a missed shot by Brookville that could have gone either way.
The second call was a charge on Jake Pete that fouled Pete out of the game with 42.1 seconds left.
“The charge,” Park said. “Jack leaves two steps. He can cover a lot of ground Who makes that call on a pass down low where a guy slides in after he’s lifted up the ball like he is going to go for a floater and makes a pass in the middle of it?
The third call was in the final five seconds with Brookville down 42-40 when Park believed Isaac Hetrick was fouled by a Neshannock defender leading to Hetrick losing the ball out of bounds setting up Glies game-clinching free throws.
“Like I said, I am not going to blame the officials for that game,” Park said. “But they sure did have a hand in it. Like I said, you talk to them and ask them questions and they give you nothing.”
Brookville’s unwillingness or inability to attack the rim from the second quarter on had as much to do with the loss as any of the calls.
“We were timid,” Park said. “I don’t know what happened. That all disappeared. We’ve been working on it in practice. I’ve been trying to get guys to do more of it. I felt we could have worked harder offensively, getting in position down low, and establishing the inside game which usually opens up the outside game.”
When Brookville attacked the rim it helped the Raiders open up a 15-11 lead a minute into the second quarter.
But Neshannock got a pair of 3-pointers from Finnegan Haggerty to fuel a first-half ending 9-4 run that put the Lancers ahead two, 23-21, at halftime.
Luciano DeLillo and Glies then hit 3-pointers to start the second half pushing Neshannock’s lead to eight, 29-21, four minutes into the half.
Brookville didn’t score in the second half until a Haines bucket with 3:45 left in the third quarter but that started a 9-0 run that gave the Raiders their final lead of the game, 30-29, on a driving layup by Pete with 1:40 to play in the third quarter.
Kwiat, though, drilled a 3-pointer and Pete was called for a touch foul on the shot late in the quarter helping Neshnnaock regain the edge, 33-30, going to the fourth quarter.
That four-point play started a 10-1 run for the Lancers that got them to the 39-31 lead with just under five minutes to play.
“My guys played hard until the end,” Park said. “They are missing free throws, and I think we have a chance. We had a chance up until the point where Isaac was pushed out of bounds.”
Glies led Neshannock, who will face WPIAL champion Deer Lakes in the quarterfinals Saturday, with 11 points with Kwiat adding nine and DeLillo and Haggerty eight each.
Cook had a game-high 14 points for Brookville with Pete adding 11.
